


Pixel Worlds: Platinum Stars

by Sackatizer50 (Azeleon)



Category: Pixel Worlds: MMO Sandbox
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 49
Words: 33,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23286466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azeleon/pseuds/Sackatizer50
Summary: Note: This is an old story of mine I made a long time ago, and the writing ability I show in this story doesn't reflect my current skill. You do not need to know anything about Pixel Worlds: MMO Sandbox to enjoy this fanfiction!Summary:Something has happened in portal worlds.Strange beings from another place entirely have arrived, and began to take the energy from the heart of portal worlds!Avester and his new friends attempt to discover the meaning of all of this, before learning that along with the alien beings, came an ancient and powerful evil, bent on destroying everything around it.Avester travels through new realms, worlds, and places, meeting many others of all shapes and sizes, learning about the history of portal worlds itself, and about this strange ancient evil, as well as the secret behind the old race that lived in portal worlds long before themselves!Pixel worlds and all of it's characters, ideas, settings, et cetera, are owned by Kukouri Mobile entertainment, and the game's developers.My own original characters are based off of similar characters in Pixel Worlds.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. Sir! We have a problem!

"Sir! We have a problem!" An employee announced to his boss.

A man, a bit older looking than most others, sat at his desk, leaning over it.

"What's wrong?" He asked his employee.

"The heart, it's under attack!"

"The heart...? Are you sure?" He asked his employee, skeptical that "The Heart" could even be attacked.

The worker ran up to his boss's desk with a tablet device in hand, and showed it to him.

The boss stood up. He was a fairly tall man, wore a green jumpsuit and a green military hat. He had a neatly kept beard and mustache.

He looked at the tablet device's screen, and saw "The Heart" on the screen. The Heart was a very large green star-like orb of energy, that provides power for all of the universe.

On the screen, a super massive, planet sized spacecraft floated near The Heart, emitting an unknown orange energy below it.

It opened the front of itself up, and a large orange glowing rod extended outwards, inserting itself directly into the glowing green Heart, and began to suck up energy.

The Heart began to pulsate and fluctuate at the change of energy, being absorbed by the planet sized shuttle.

"...What?!" The boss exclaimed.

"Send troops, and fast!" He ordered his worker.

"On it, Captain Finn!" The worker acknowledged his boss's order.

The boss, named "Captain Finn", sat back down at his desk, and began to wonder what in the world runs off of an orange colored energy, and why they'd want to come and take energy directly from the Heart Itself.

The employee with the tablet left the office and ran down the hallway, entering a control room, and immediately turned to flip open a case, and activate the button underneath, sounding alarms throughout the whole building.

Immediately, soldiers started running down the halls, and eventually made it to a large room where readied spaceships are docked. Just before any of them could enter, a massive boom of energy sounded across the whole sky, shaking the entire building.

On a nearby screen, it showed the massive spacecraft floating away from The Heart, which was now pulsing in a strange energy, and getting slightly darker.


	2. Good morning, sleepy head!

"Hey! Wake up, silly! It's time to learn!" An excited, but metallic voice sounded.

On the floor of an open, brightly lit metal room, laid a boy in a blue jumpsuit, and a blue cap.

He looked around the age of 13 or 14.

The boy sat up and looked around him, seeing a floating round robot floating beside him, with a screen for a face.

It smiled at him.

"Good morning, sleepy head! My name is Tutorial Bot, and I'm here to help you learn the loops here in Portal Worlds!" It exclaimed at him.

"But first, you need to make a name for yourself! I mean literally, make up a name!"

The boy sat there for a moment, a bit confused. It seemed as if he woke up from a deep sleep, but he brushed it off as just an odd feeling.

He looked up at the smiling bot, and thought for a moment, about what he wanted to call himself, and one name came to mind nearly immediately.

"Avester." He told the bot.

"Alright! Avester it is!" The bot shouted overly excitedly.

"Well, Avester, come with me! There's some things you're going to need to learn!"

Avester got up from the ground, and followed the spherical robot to a nearby orange wall.

"This wall is destructible! That means you can break it with your fists!" They started.

"All you need to do is walk over to it and give it a few good rounds, it'll break easily! Just bust that wall down and go on through!" They explained.

Avester looked at his hands, and then the solid orange wall, wondering if he would really be able to break through a wall with his fists alone.

He balled his right fist, and gave it a good swing at the orange wall, and large cracks formed on the surface of it, showing signs of damage.

He gave it a few more swings, and eventually the wall crumbled into orange fragments and shards, revealing another room on the other side.

The Tutorial Bot zoomed right into the next room as Avester stepped in.  
Next to the bot was a small pit, small enough to be able to step out of.

"The next thing we're going to do is jump! Jump over this pit! Y'know, a little bunny hop or a large frog leap!" The Tutorial Bot enthusiastically explained, before simply floating past the pit themselves.

Avester approached the pit, and looked at it before instinctively jumping across, with no problems.

The bot went near a flat wall on the other side, and tapped it, having an orange opening appear.

"This is a portal! It leads to another nearby portal! Just walk through it like you walk through the air!" They explained, before floating through it with no effort.

Avester approached the portal, and stepped through it, only to step out of another portal inside of a different room. A seamless transition.

Before him was a set of metal stairs, and the Tutorial Bot excitedly waving it's metal arm at him from the top.

He walks up the steps to see the bot floating above an orange floor, made of the same material as the previously encountered orange wall.

"You should know what to do here, my wonderful student!" The bot laughed.

Avester stepped up to the orange floor, and crouched down, giving it a few hits with his fist before it broke into orange pieces, having him fall down to the hallway below.

It wasn't a very large fall, so the bot floated it's way down and hovered in front of an orange portal at the end.

As Avester walked up to the bot, the bot's face showed a sad expression.

"Avester, it's been so nice knowing you, but sadly, we have to go our separate ways now!"

Suddenly, the Tutorial Bot laughed.

"Sike! Just kidding! Here, take this!" The bot joked as they handed a small device to Avester.

Avester took the device, and suddenly, his hand seemed to flash on contact with it.

"That's an IP device! It stands for Instant Portal Device!" The bot began to explain.  
"With this, you can travel between different worlds using the touch screen! You can also register others like yourself as friends, and even text them any time you want!"  
"And the device is bound to your 'energy', so that means even if you leave it somewhere or lose it on accident, it will always appear on you again!"

The bot showed Avester how to use it, pointing at the screen on it, showing multiple buttons.

"Here you have your friends," They started, pointing at a "Friends button".  
"Then you have global messages, world information, _your_ information... Pixelians in the current world, inventory, and of course quests and achievements!"  
"With quests and achievements, you can call me, and I can hook you up with some fun activities for you to do, and you'll be rewarded for them!" They explained.

Avester looked at the bot, and then the portal beside them.

"Okay, Avester! Now it's time for your big step! Enter that portal, and you will be brought to your very own world, and you're provided with a 'small lock'! Use that above your white portal to lock others from entering your world! That's your first quest!"  
Avester took a few steps, and took a deep breath before entering the portal, leaving the Tutorial Bot behind.

"They grow up so fast..." The bot sniffled.

A "ding" noise could be heard back in the beginning of the building, signalling that a new Pixelian needed teaching.


	3. My name is Digit.

Avester appeared on a circular metal platform with white energy going upwards from it. He was in a vast open grassy field, with a bright blue sky above him.

He looked around for this "small lock" that he was provided with, but remembered that the Tutorial Bot did mention a button on his IP device that would open an inventory.

He clicked the button, and the screen showed several empty blue squares, however the first two containing his blue jumpsuit and blue cap, and the third containing a blue lock with an S symbol on the face of it.

Upon clicking it, the blue lock appeared in his hand.

Avester stepped off of the white metal plate, which he assumed must have been the "entrance portal", and tossed the blue lock right above it, the lock suddenly suspending itself in place above the portal, and emitting a green energy field around itself, covering it and the portal.

Avester hears a sound from his IP device, and checks it. The quests and achievements button lit up, and upon pressing it, he received a call from the Tutorial Bot, as if it were a phone.

He accepted the call, and suddenly the bot's shouted "HELLO" extremely loudly through the speaker, echoing through the horizon.

"Haha! Sorry about that, I just had to!" They began to speak.

"Looks like you've completed your quest! Now I have another one for you! Just-"  
Suddenly the call cut off, and IP device was back to the main screen, except that the quests and achievements button was completely gone.

"Wh..." Avester uttered to himself, before hearing a strange noise behind him.

He looked behind him to see another person materialize on the entrance portal.

This was a person wearing a long sleeved black shirt, and dark blue jeans, as well as combat boots. They had shaggy black hair and a short beard and mustache.

The other person stepped right off of the entrance portal plate and onto the green grass, and walked right out of the green force field of the small lock.

"I thought the lock was supposed to keep others out..." Avester asked himself, genuinely confused as to what the Tutorial Bot had told him about locks.

The other person looked at the lock, and then down to the bottom of the entrance portal, and then to Avester.

"Looks to me that you did not actually block it." They remarked.

Avester looked at the other person, seeing their light emerald green eyes.

"Here, take these, and block your entrance up before someone less generous comes around." The person said, as they opened their IP device and used it to throw a couple of small cubes of soil towards Avester.

Avester took them up and set them around the portal, having them form walls around it.

"So uh... Who are you? How'd you get here?" Avester asked the other one.

"My name is Digit. I just happened to find this world in the active worlds list." He told Avester.

Digit looks off into the distance, watching as the sun begins to lower behind the horizon.

"Looks like it's getting late anyway, I'm going to leave now. You'd best get some sleep." He suggested to Avester, as he took his IP device, and used it to disappear from the world, likely zipping off to another world.

Avester looked for a soft spot in the green grass, and laid down, to fall asleep.


	4. No, that guy stole your stuff!

The morning sun shined over the skies, illuminating the clouds to a bright white, then shining down onto the land below.

The light awakened Avester. He shifted in the grass for a moment, and turned to look upwards, seeing a tall figure standing over him.

"Wha!?" Avester exclaimed as he sat right up in the grass, trying to take a proper look.

Standing beside him was Digit, crossing his arms and looking down at him.

"Morning." He remarked.

"How'd you get out?" Avester asked Digit, remembering that he surrounded the entrance portal with walls of soil.

He looked back at where the entrance portal was, and saw a missing wall.

Digit looks back to the entrance portal as well, and then back to Avester.

"You know," he started.

"You should check out the Portal Station. It's a place where all the new people like you hang out, you can shop there, spin a daily bonus, and more." Digit told Avester.

"Uh..." Avester responded, confused as to why Digit was waiting there just to tell him this.

"Well uh, want to add me as a friend first?" Avester asked Digit, as he pulled up his IP device, and went to the "friends" button.  
He realized that Digit didn't seem to show up on there.

"No thank you." Digit declined, before using his device to beam back out of the world.

Avester looked back down at his IP device to leave the world and go to the Portal Station.

Just as he went to the main menu of his IP device, he saw something move on the corner of his eye.

He looked around, and saw nothing around him, and continued on to the Portal Station.

He went to the "Worlds" button, and found the Portal Station already on the front, ready to be entered.

As soon as he clicked the button, a white beam of light shot down from the sky above him, pulling him up at nearly the speed of light, and suddenly he was thrown into a portal.

He zipped through space from one portal to the next, at an unimaginable speed, until eventually he found himself drop down onto an entrance portal.

Avester took a moment to regain his balance after the hectic trip, and began to look around him. There were others like him everywhere. People dressed in blue and pink jumpsuits, and sometimes others dressed in more exotic clothing.

He was in some massive futuristic city of buildings, floating structures, and an open, bright blue sky.

A round bot approached him, though different from the Tutorial Bot he'd previously met.

"Hello, welcome to the Portal Station! Read those signs over there for directions on where to go!" It explained, pointing towards large holographic signs.

Avester approached the signs and read what they had to say.

"Nether Vendor, Daily Bonus, Portal Worlds Exchange."  
Various things that Avester didn't know, however he remembered Digit mentioning a "Daily bonus", so he decided to follow where the sign pointed.

After a bit of walking down a path, he approached a large open-faced building with several people in it waiting near large gift-boxes that were laid out on the ground.

He walked up to an open one, and a holographic screen appeared above it, showing a 3x3 grid of boxes with various items in it.

Upon clicking the "Spin" button on the screen, a highlighter spun around the boxes, and eventually landed on "25 gems".

Suddenly, a small sack appeared in Avester's hands.

Upon opening it, he could see a small collection of blue gemstones, which he assumed must have been the currency of this world.

Avester closed the holographic screen and turned around to leave the building, but accidentally bumped into another person who was holding various blocks in their arms.

They ended up dropping the blocks all over the ground.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Avester exclaimed.

"No, it's okay! I was just in your way" The other person replied.

It was another like him, a new person, but this one had longer lashes, as well as a pink themed suit and cap.

Just before she could pick up her blocks, some other person in a green shirt and no pants ran up as fast as they could, and picked up the blocks, running away with them.

"Hey!" She exclaimed.

Avester looks for a moment, and then begins to run after the other green shirted person, with the girl following behind.

The green shirted person turned into an alleyway between some buildings, with Avester and the girl running from behind. He tried to slow Avester and the girl down by throwing random things at them from around the alley, but they managed to dodge them. The green shirted person met a tall fence at the end, seemingly trapped, but threw the blocks over the fence and began to climb over, dropping down on the other side and running off.

Avester climbed over the fence, along with the girl.

"It's okay! They're just some blocks, I can get more!" She tried to convince Avester as they ran after the thief.

"No, that guy stole your stuff, I'm getting it back!" He replied.

The thief tried to use his own IP device to leave the Portal Station, but accidentally dropped it while running.

It suddenly teleported right back to him, and smacked him in the face, throwing him off balance and having him drop the girl's blocks.

Avester took back the blocks, and suddenly round robots with armor and handcuffs floated by, and handcuffed the thief.

"You're under arrest for stealing these blocks from another person!" They shouted.

Avester gave the girl her blocks back.

"Well... Thank you!" She thanked him.

"Uh, my name's Lee. I'm new around here, heh." She finished.

"I'm Avester, nice to meet you." He told her.

They both stood silently on the side of a high-traffic walkway where several other people walked along.

"Well hey, do you want to add me as a friend?" Avester asked.

"Oh, sure!" She responded.

They both pulled out their IP devices and went to the "friends" tab, and typed in each other's name, adding each other as friends on their lists.

"Uh hey, I just remembered seeing something about being able to 'warp' to friends or something, why don't we go to my world?" Lee suggested.

Avester nodded, and Lee used her device to beam out of the Portal Station.

After a few seconds, a "Warp" button appeared on Avester's IP device, beside Lee's name.

Upon clicking it, the same beam of light struck down, sending him through the spacial zooming once more.


	5. You can grow anything on trees!

Avester beamed down onto an entrance portal, in Lee's world.

Looking around, it was much like his own, an open, flat grassy land, except now there is a small cabin in the distance, built of a combination of soil and wood.

Lee waved at Avester from the entrance of her cabin, Avester walking over to there just after.

"Hey! You came!" She remarked at Avester.

Avester looked around the world, and at the cabin. It had small openings for windows, and a poorly placed wooden door.

"Of course... Anything you wanted to do?" Avester asked.

"Uh... I hadn't thought of that... " Lee thought to herself.

Suddenly, from the entrance portal, another person in their underwear beamed down, with a big frown on their face.

"Oh, hello there!" Lee greeted them.

"Please... Please donate..." They begged of Lee and Avester after walking up to them.

"Uh..." Avester uttered when not knowing how to respond to this.

The frowning person suddenly got mad.  
"Noob!" They shouted, before taking out their IP device, and accidentally dropping it in the grass before picking it back up again to leave the world.

"Okay." Avester simply told himself.

"Oh, that reminds me," Lee started.

"I want to show you around my world a bit! I built a few things here."

She turned towards the cabin and held out her arms towards it, as if presenting it to him.

"This, is my house! Built it myself." She enthusiastically explained before opening the wooden door in the front and walking in, Avester following behind.

Inside was an empty room made of soil and wood, and a single wooden chair on the other end.

"Yeah, it's not much." She pointed out, before walking up to another wooden door and opening it.

"But, here's my backyard farm though!"

She and Avester walked outside to see a small fenced area, with several small trees lining the fences, no taller than themselves.

She walked up to a tree and plucked a granite block off of it, with the tree shriveling down into a seed and a pile of gems.

"You can grow anything on trees!" She exclaimed.

After a small while of talking about various topics, Avester decided to head back to his own world, as it was getting late.  
They're inside her cabin, her sitting on her chair and him on the floor.

"I think I'm going to get going now." He told her.  
"Okay! Talk to you tomorrow!" She waved goodbye as he left the house.

He stepped out into the chilly night, and looked at the entrance portal in the distance. It seemed as if someone was just left the world using the portal before he had stepped outside.

He decided that he wanted to try and use the entrance portal to go back to his world this time.

He approached the portal and stood beside it. Suddenly, a green holographic screen of energy appeared, showing a similar display to the IP device's "worlds" menu.

He typed in his world name and stepped on the entrance portal pad.

A white beam of energy shot down from the sky and pulled him up, but just before he entered the usual portal on the top, he saw before the screen closed, the target world name changed from his to something else he couldn't read fast enough.

He was flung through space like before, but this time, to an unknown destination.

Avester beamed down onto an entrance portal like usual, but this time, everything was very cold, and white.

He was inside of an endless snowy tundra, with ice mountains in the far distance.

A little head of him, was an extremely tall tower made of metal scraps and hanging wires, reaching beyond the snowstorm filled clouds above.

It was dark, he could only barely see using the light of the entrance portal, and the occasional yellow flashing lights from the tower.

He tried to use the portal or his IP device, but neither of them would respond to his actions.

He walked through the cold snow, and eventually made it up to the tower after a short minute.

The tower had a normal looking door on the front.

He tried to open the door to see if anyone inside would help him out, however upon touching the doorknob, everything around him went black for a second, and he woke up in an empty grassy world, his own world.


	6. Portal Station. Midnight.

Avester sat right up, looking around frantically.

He didn't know if all of it was a dream, or if it was real, and began to become paranoid.

He took out his IP Device and immediately went to the friends menu, to see if Lee was even still on there, if she was even real.

To Avester's relief, her name was on the list, and so he decided to message her.

"Good morning." He sent to her, through the instant messaging system.

"Morning. Mind if I come over?" She replied a minute later.

Before Avester could reply, Lee appeared on the entrance portal nearby, and passed through the open side of the soil walls, that Avester had forgotten to patch.

"Hey! How're you?" Lee greeted Avester, who was still sitting on the ground.

"Eh... Fine... I had a weird dream last night though." Avester replied, getting up from the ground and picking off loose grass.

"I had a dream that, after visiting your place," Avester started.

"That I walked outside, and went to use the entrance portal, but it looked as if someone had just left using it... And when I used it, I ended up going into some other world that wasn't this one." He described his odd dream.

Lee looked at him for a moment.

"Well, I did see someone doing something at the entrance portal, when we were talking about stuff last night," She admitted.

"But maybe you accidentally going to different world was just a dream, or maybe you clicked the wrong thing-" She got cut off by Avester.

"No, I remember I was there. I could feel the coldness of the snow in that world, but I just find it odd how... Eh never mind." Avester explained, then realized he may as well just forget it.

Before Lee could take a breath to continue the conversation, a noise sounded at Avester's entrance portal, and out stepped Digit.

"Hey-" Digit began to greet Avester before Avester walked up to him.

"You're always here in my world, despite not even being on my friends list." Avester immediately pointed out.

"Well-" Digit began to explain, before being cut off again by Avester, sighing as he was being interrupted.

"Was that whole weird snowy world real? Do you know something about it?" Avester began asking Digit.

Suddenly, Digit received a message on his IP Device.

"Portal Station. Midnight." He said, then beamed out of the world.

"...Uh." Lee uttered.

"Don't mind him, he's just sort of... Been there. Keeps coming to my world." Avester explained.

"I guess we should check out the Portal Station?" Lee suggested.

Despite Digit being an odd fellow to Avester, he decided it wouldn't hurt to see what's up.

He nodded his head, and together, they both warped to the Portal Station.


	7. Shame, shouldn't have come here.

The cold midnight air blows through the calm streets of the Portal Hub as very few others walk around.

Lee and Avester are sitting on a public bench, near a small park area, looking up at the star spangled sky, watching the 2 moons hover in a serene, green glow.

Lee looks down at her IP device.

"Looks like it'll be midnight in a few minutes," She pointed out.

"What are we supposed to do then?"

Avester looked at her, and then back up at the sky.

"Not sure, I guess we just wait and see."

"How about we go and get our Daily Bonuses?" She suggested.

Avester did remember hearing talk before that they reset at midnight, allowing for a new spin for the day.

They both got up from the bench and walked a short way until they met with a more populated area, with many sitting around, some even sleeping on the comfortable ground.

Suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, Avester felt a strange sharp loss of balance, before quickly regaining it.  
"D-Did you feel that?" He asked Lee.

Lee was looking up at the sky, along with every single other around them.

Upon looking up, Avester saw a very large floating black pillar, with pulsating orange veins of energy streaming down it's sides.

"Uh, we should leave." Lee suggested.

Avester agreed, and they both took their IP Devices, but quickly saw that they were completely disabled, the screens all black.

The entrance portal nearby showed no usual white energy around it, just an empty metal pad.

Avester and Lee began to panic a little, hugging each other tight.

Suddenly from behind them, a pair of arms grabbed their shoulders.

It was Digit.

"Shame, shouldn't have come here," He told them.  
Avester turned around, feeling as if he'd been betrayed by Digit.

Digit's eyes glowed a pulsing green before disappearing into the now panicking crowd of people.

Everyone around them were running in every which direction, screaming and shouting, terrified that they cannot leave the world, and that a very large, unknown object loomed above in the night sky.

The massive pillar began to open it's bottom up, revealing an orange glowing rod underneath, that moved outwards, and began to glow brighter.

Suddenly, the rod fires a massive beam on the side of the Portal Station for a split second, then stops.

It closes itself back up, and suddenly an orange ball of energy launches from the point of impact, high into space, and expands to an unimaginably large size.

It was a large portal.

Suddenly, a super massive, planet sized spacecraft emerges from the portal, pulsating with immense orange energy.

The pillar that seemed to summon this portal, flew up to the massive spacecraft, looking extremely tiny in comparison.

The large craft opened up it's bottom, and began to send rings of orange energy down to the surface of the Portal Station.

One by one, various others began to be lifted into the air, as well as buildings, various bots, and more, however select few other people did not end up being pulled up, Avester included.

But this did not include Lee.

Lee began to float up as all of the chaos happened around them, and Avester held on as tightly as he could.

He even began to float up due to hanging off of her arm, the force of the energy was too strong.

"Wh-What's happening?!" She screamed.

Avester didn't answer, as he slipped from her hand, and fell down around 10 feet below.

The massive spacecraft suddenly zipped out of sight, at an impossible speed, with everyone and everything that was suspended in the air, now falling down, into a literal rain of chaos.

Avester avoided being crushed from falling debris, as he tried to catch the now falling Lee.

Various other Pixelians and things were falling, sometimes on each other.

Lee fell past Avester, and landed on the ground, but before Avester could go over and help her.

Boom.

A large piece of debris had landed on her, her upper body only visible.

"L- No!" Avester shouted.

He ran up to her and immediately began to push on the large debris as hard as he could, but would not move.

He felt a sudden surge of energy overcome him, as if he was dead set determined to save Lee, but despite his efforts, nothing happened anyway.

He helplessly wasted all of his own energy trying to save the already gone Lee.

He turned around and sat beside her, holding her only hand that was out of the debris.


	8. Captain! What are you doing?!

"Captain Finn!" An employee yelled as they ran down a hallway to their boss's office room.

They turned and entered the room, to see it empty. Captain Finn was away.

The employee took out his own IP Device and searched his friends list, finding Captain Finn, and messaging him.

"Sir, where are you?" He sent Finn.

"The invaders are back to suck up more energy from the heart. Going out there myself." He replied.

"Oh no." The employee told themselves, as they ran as fast as they could to the ship docking area.

As soon as he entered the huge room, there was a small fighter ship just leaving, to fly off into space, with Captain Finn piloting it.

"Captain! What are you doing?!" He shouted just as the fighter ship darted off into the sky outside.

Captain Finn is seated in one chair, looking through the window for his target.

He was quickly approaching the large, green "Heart", as the previously seen Planet-Sized spacecraft absorbed its energy.

As soon as it had detected Finn's arrival, it immediately cancelled the absorption process, and opened a portal, flying back to whatever place they came from.

Before it closed however, Finn flew his ship right in behind it, entering a new, unknown space.

He sees the portal close behind him, and the huge spacecraft he had been chasing flew off to a super massive orange core, much like the "heart" in Captain Finn's place.

From the orange heart was veins of orange energy that spanned the entire visible cosmos, and several hundreds of portals could be seen with other planet sized spacecrafts entering and leaving.

The ship he had been chasing flew up to this orange "heart", and dispensed the green energy into it, making it glow a bit brighter, and some green energy pulsing out into various planets and moons made up of crystals and diamonds.

In the farthest point, in the back of it all, a planet made entirely out of technology was visible, the size of around 5 planet Earths.

Captain Finn did not understand what he was seeing, he didn't know if he was even inside of his own _universe_ anymore.

Suddenly, his ship detected lifeforms behind him. Upon turning his ship around, he spotted 2 unknown creatures that he had never seen before.

They resembled octopuses, but made out of steel and metal, and had large single orange eyes in the centers of their heads, and several smaller orange eyes dotting their faces.

They had roughly 10 tentacles made of some kind of flexible metal, and 2 of the tentacles on each had hands, that were holding some types of laser guns.

They immediately open fire, shooting strange orange lightning bolts at Finn's ship, and him firing green lasers back at them, seemingly deflecting off of their metallic skin.

They way they moved, made it seem as though they weren't robots, but actual living beings, but made out of metal and highly advanced technology.

They seemed to fight in unison, as if they were both connected to each other as one sentient mind.

After attempting to maneuver and avoid their attacks while hopelessly firing back at them, they eventually disabled his ship, and captured him, knocking him out cold as he was contained in some kind of transparent steel container.


	9. Unregistered being.

Avester sits next to Lee's body, thinking about what just happened. So many thoughts and confusions circulated within his own mind, that all he could think about was nothing. His mind was blank, and his face, emotionless.

From an opening in the rubble, a sound is heard.

Avester looks over to see a large green portal open up, and a large group of police bots and medic bots floating out, assisting survivors, helping others, and leading them to the portal to safety.

No police bot found him yet, so he got up himself and hesitated a bit before walking over to the portal, just as medic bots found the crushed Lee under the rubble.

He approached the portal, and looked around one last time, seeing all of the confusion and chaos that was all too sudden for anyone to even expect, and yet, despite that, it seemed as though Digit knew exactly what was going to happen.

"Portal Station, Midnight."  
The words echoed through Avester's mind as he thought about Digit disappearing into the panicking crowd just before the calamity, and hasn't been seen anywhere else since.

Avester decided that maybe Digit has something to do with it, maybe he's with whatever force is behind the orange energy-powered spacecrafts.

He did not know, but didn't think too much about it before hearing someone nearby shouting.

Nearby was a separate green portal.

Some police bots had handcuffed another pixelian, and began to push him into the portal.

"What?! What did I do?! I just witnessed my friend DIE!" He screamed at the bots as they kept pushing him further.

"You are an unregistered being." They simply stated, in an emotionless robotic voice.

Avester saw this as unfair, and wanted to help, but decided it might be best he ignore it and continue into the safe portal in front of him.

Before taking but one step in, he got pulled back by a pair of metal hands, and immediately handcuffed.

"What?" Avester asked.  
"Unregistered being." A police bot replied.

Avester knew that he was no unregistered being, he was a pixelian just like everyone else around him.

The police bots carried him over to the other portal anyway, and threw him in, him falling right into the inside of a jail cell.

His utter confusion and frustration manifested when he began to shout and kick at the jail cell bars as hard as he could.

He was just another pixelian, with his best friend.

He watched her die in front of him, from a completely unknown force, and now he's being arrested for being an "Unregistered being".

After calming down, Avester sat down in his cell, and looked out of it.  
He saw another cell across from him, with another pixelian in a blue jumpsuit, but this one having somewhat long black hair, one part covering one eye.

The other pixelian looked at him with a scared face.

"I'm not an unregistered being..." They told Avester.

"That's what they locked you up for too?" Avester asked them.

The other pixelian nodded.

"Maybe... Maybe they just have a bug in their AI or something..." The other pixelian suggested.

Avester thought.

"My name's Krow, by the way..." The other one told Avester.

"I'm Avester." He replied, with a somewhat emotionless voice.

Some police bots floated in.

"B-Bots! Release me! Please, I'm innocent!" Krow jumped up to the bars and began begging them.

They were carrying another handcuffed pixelian to a cell next to Krow's.

When they opened the cell door to throw her in, she immediately tried to run away and escape, but they pushed her back and locked it shut, leaving the building.

This other pixelian wore the same kind of pink jumpsuit and cap that Lee wore, but had a red ponytail visible underneath.

She crawled up to the bars, and began to hold onto them, still handcuffed.

They all began to feel some type of energy between them, but couldn't explain what it was.


	10. Hello, Pixelians. I am Cephalo.

After a short while of sitting around, watching other pixelians get carried into their own cells, the strange energy between everyone began to grow.

"Does anyone else feel that...?" Krow asked aloud.

"Mmhmm." The girl with the red ponytail replied.

"Feels like some kind of weird... Heat?" Avester suggested.

Suddenly, a large rumble could be heart outside, alerting the police bots to go outside and see what's happening.

Avester went up to his cell bars and looked to the right, to see that not far down the hall was the entrance of the building, and through the open doors, he saw what looked like another orange-powered pillar landing on the ground.

The police bots held up laser guns at the invading pillar, just as the pillar opened a hole in it's front, presumably a door, and out came a creature.

Avester had never seen it before, a creature that resembled a robotic octopus alien, with 10 tentacles, 2 tentacles of which had usable hands.

The creature had a large orange eye in the center of its face, and smaller orange eyes lining its face.

Krow jumped up to his cell bars to see what was going on too.

The alien creature transformed one of its hands into some type of laser device, and zapped the police bots, instantly disabling them.

It then took one of it's tentacles and "plugged" it into the back of one of the disabled bots, seemingly reactivating them, but now with a glowing orange screen of a face.

It then floated over and began to unlock each cell one by one as the alien creature opened a small orange portal, that by the looks of it, must have lead to the inside of the nearby orange pillar spacecraft.

The possessed bot lead several of the pixelians into the portal, them going in as they had no clue what was going on.

Avester and Krow knew something was up, and tried to hide in their own cells, and wait for the alien creature to leave without them.

Eventually they were spotted by the bot, and carried over to the portal.

Before being tossed in however, another pixelian from behind them kicked the alien creature's tentacle right out of the back of the police bot, deactivating the bot and dropping Krow and Avester.

The alien creature closed the portal shut, and the other remaining pixelians began to scatter.

The pixelian, handcuffed like everyone else, managed to send a flying kick towards the alien creature, stunning it for a short moment, before it regained its whereabouts.

The alien creature tried to stab at the pixelian with its sharp pointed tentacles, with him deflecting each tentacle with a swing of his leg, or a quick movement.

He looked at the alien creature, and to Avester and Krow's surprise, his eyes flashed a glowing green, and he snapped the chain on his handcuffs right off, with just the cuffs left on each of his now free wrists.

With his eyes still aglow, he grabbed onto one of the alien creature's metallic tentacles, and clenched it as hard as he could, pulling the heavy metal octopus towards him, and kicking it directly in the center eye.

The alien creature fell unconscious, and the orange pillar spacecraft behind lifted back up into space, and zoomed away at an impossible speed, leaving it's unconscious alien creature behind.

Avester and Krow stood in awe as the pixelian's green glowing eyes reverted back to a natural green.

"Holy. Crap. That was awesome..." Krow commented.

"Heh, thanks. I'm Shane." The pixelian replied, taking a loose key from one of the previously disabled police bots and unlocking the cuffs off of Avester and Krow.

"That ship, it was in the portal station before, it opened up a big portal and..." Avester started to explain to Shane.

"Settle down, it's okay. It's gone now, and we're safe." Shane assured Avester.

"How in the flippin' world did you manage to pull all of that off?!" Krow asked Shane.

"You're just some newbie like us! Right?"

Shane had brown hair sweeping over to the side in a nicely kept fashion, and a brown goatee.

He wore a grey shirt and some jeans, with brown shoes.

"I dunno," Shane started.

"I just sort of did all of the normal stuff that any other pixelian does, you know, the tutorial station thing, all that."  
Shane stretched his arms before continuing.

"I was digging up some blocks one day until suddenly, boom. I could just, dig so much faster. I could run, jump, and do anything better than anyone else,"  
"I dunno how, to be honest, but it happened."

Before Shane could speak more, a slight metallic whir sounded from the unconscious metal octopus alien creature.

The 3 pixelians looked back to it, and saw a faint orange glow pulsing through it, much like a heartbeat.

It opened its eye and floated back up, opening one of it's tentacles like a satellite dish, and pointing it upwards.

It seemed disappointed for a moment, and began to intently look at the three pixelians with it's advanced larger eye.

Suddenly, it made a noise similar to that of microphone feedback.

"Hello, pixelians. I am Cephalo. I am a Kinzoku." It began to speak to them in their language, but it's voice sounded very metallic, and completely unnatural to traditional speaking.

"It talks?!" Krow commented.

"I am from the Technaverse dimension, it is another dimension, much like how the 'Nether World' is another dimension to this one." Cephalo explained.

"Dimensions? Nether world?" Avester asked.

"It's supposed to be explained sometime," Shane explained.

"I guess it's another 'dimension', or other universe, however you want to put it. It's another place that has it's own Heart Core, and it's own creatures." He continued.

"Heart core?" Krow asked.

"It is a bit difficult to explain, but it's essentially an over sized battery that powers an entire dimension," Cephalo told Krow.

"Your Heart Core is of the color green. The one where I come from, is orange."

"So what were you doing taking these captured pixelians? Why did that space ship summon a larger one and wipe out the portal station? Why?" Avester began to shoot questions at the robotic alien.

"I do not know all of the details, however I was sent here on a mission to capture a special group of pixelians, much like yourselves,"

"The catastrophe at the portal station was only to assure that we can root out all special pixelians."

"Sorry for beating you up, had to do what I had to do. My name's Shane." Shane greeted Cephalo.

"I'm... Krow." Krow introduced himself, still a bit nervous about Cephalo.

"Avester." Avester replied, being a bit mad at Cephalo for their people destroying the portal hub, and ultimately Lee.

"I do apologize for those actions, Avester. It was what had to be done." Cephalo apologized.

Avester felt a little better about an apology, but was still very upset.


	11. Don't. You'll regret it.

Captain Finn wakes up on a cold glass floor.

Upon looking around, he sees that he's in some kind of glass box, hovering over some kind of spacial abyss.

He begins to look around frantically, seeing massive robotic walls in the distance surrounding him and the void, as if he and his glass box were in some kind of colossal room with an abyss for a floor and ceiling.

From the abyss below, a very large robotic octopus creature, much like what he had seen before, floated up.

It was similar to the others, however it's metal skin was much darker, nearly black, and it's head had a couple more rods on it.

"Captain Finn," They speak to him, with a deep, very robotic voice.

"I am Volox, leader of the Technaverse, much like how you are the leader of your very own universe, the Portalverse, Captain Finn."

"What do you want with me?" Captain Finn asked Volox.

"Finn. Listen to me. We are harvesting the energy of the Portalverse's Heart Core," Volox explained.

"It is for a very good reason, but why, is classified. It is very important that you do NOT interfere."

"I'm going to interfere all I want when someone's taking energy from my place's Heart!" Finn barked back.

"You will not, and we will take what energy we need." Volox demanded.

"Don't, you'll regret it. I'm not just saying this to stop you, but there's something terrible that will happen if you take too much." Finn told Volox, in a pleading manor.

Volox focused his eyes on Finn, intrigued.

"Continue." He permitted Finn.

"See... Long ago, I found out a way to infuse myself with the energy of the Heart, and I've given these abilities to other trusted administrators of my universe," He began to explain.

"There was one admin who I had given power to, and... He abused it. He caused chaos everywhere, and so we had no other way to stop him but to lock him in the very center of our Heart Core,"

"And if it loses too much of it's energy, he'll escape, and cause chaos once more." Finn told Volox the story.

Volox looked off into the distance, and made an audible sigh.

"We'll take care of it." He told Finn, before floating back down into the abyss.

"No! Wait!" Finn tried to stop Volox, but failed.


	12. Listen, Avester, there isn't much time.

Wind was blowing through the grassy field as Avester, Krow, Shane and Cephalo all sat themselves down in the grass in Avester's world.

"So you're meaning to tell us that your kind just sort of, _disowned_ you?" Shane asked Cephalo.

Cephalo nodded.

"Yes, as soon as you beat me, I immediately failed my mission, and was therefore terminated from my people." Cephalo replied.

"Harsh..." Krow remarked.

Avester cleared his throat.

"Well uh, I don't know if we all properly introduced ourselves," He started.

"I'm Avester. I 'started' my journey just yesterday, going through the tutorial building, and into my own world,"  
"That's when I met this weird guy, 'Digit' is his name. He told me to go to the Portal Station, and so I went,"  
"I met a new friend there, Lee. We hung out for a little while until the next day, when we ended up going back to the portal station... And then everything went wrong." Avester told his story.

Krow shifted in the grass as he was seated.

"I'm Krow. I went through that tutorial place no problem, and ended up meeting someone in my world who tried to get me to give him my items,"  
"We actually ended up becoming friends, and he taught me everything he knew, how to steal things from other players, and 'drop games',"  
"But one day, he just... Disappeared,"  
"When trying to search for him, I went to the portal station, and then all that chaos happened, and I got locked up like my pals Avester and Shane here." Krow told his story.

"Your friend was probably jailed for stealing?" Shane suggested.

"Anyway, I'm Shane. I learned what I could from the tutorial place, and left to my own world. I eventually managed to find a friend, who kept on asking for 'donations', and I sort of felt like I had to help him out somehow..."  
"And then it went a bit far, and I had to stop giving him my stuff, but then he used everything in his power to get me in trouble,"  
"I tried to look for him in the portal station to see if he would apologize, but all of that craziness happened... Now we're here." Shane told his story.

"I see we must be sharing our life stories. I shall share mine, then." Cephalo began.

"I am Cephalo. I was born of a technalium egg fabricator, and from birth, I was immediately trained to be a soldier of my home universe, the Technaverse,"

"By the time I was of the age of an adult, I was hired into various missions... The last one being this one,"

"I was supposed to be sent out to retrieve a group of special pixelians, but why, I do not know. All I know is that I have failed, and I am no longer considered a part of my military." Cephalo told his story.

They sat in silence for a few moments.

"So how old are you all? I'm like, 3 days old." Krow asked them.  
"Well, I said I started my journey yesterday." Avester replied.

"I'm 3 weeks." Shane replied.

"Using my measurement of time, I am considered 25 years," Cephalo began.

"But you pixelians use a different measurement, so in _your_ time, I'm considered 92." He finished explaining.

"Dang, that's old." Krow remarked, before getting up from the grass to stretch, and sitting back down.

"Avester. Over here." Avester heard a familiar voice behind him.

Avester turned around and saw Digit, and immediately got up to confront him.

He realized that none of the others seemed to know that Avester was away from the group, and that Digit was even there.

"What the hell?! Why the hell?! Who the-" Avester's questioning was interrupted by Digit grabbing his arm, and taking him through an opened green portal.

They both passed through the portal, and Avester recognized the place immediately.

The white snow, the dark skies, and the very tall metal tower not far off.

Avester looked up at the tower, knowing that it really has to be real, and perhaps it _wasn't_ a dream earlier on.

Upon looking into one of the windows, he saw some kind of dark figure step out of view.

"Listen, Avester. There isn't much time, Captain Finn was captured, and-" Digit's explaining was cut off by Avester.

"WHAT?!" Avester exclaimed.

"You expect me to fulfill some requests of yours after all of the weird stuff you put me through?!" Avester shouted at Digit.

"It was not my doing. Now LISTEN, Avester. This is important." Digit explained.

Avester angrily listened.

"Captain Finn is the leader of this universe, the Portalverse. He's the one who protects this universe's Heart Core, and he was captured by the king of Kinzoku." Digit began to explain.

Avester wondered who in the world Digit is, and how he'd even know any of this. He HAD to be working with the Kinzoku.

"We need to retrieve Finn from the Kinzoku-" Digit began to explain, before putting his attention on something else.

He opened a green portal behind Avester, which lead back to Avester's world.

"Something approaches your world, and fast. Go!" He told Avester before shoving him in.

Avester was pushed through, so many questions in mind.


	13. I'd suggest running!

Avester was sitting down on the grass with the rest of his group, just like before.

He began to look around the morning lit skies frantically, urging the others to as well.

Suddenly, Cephalo's orange eyes blipped red for a moment.

"My people approach this world." He explained.

All of them saw another pillar-shaped spacecraft powered by orange energy float into view.

"They're going to open a portal!" Avester screamed.

"This one's not designed for the summoning of portals, Avester, this one is a unit of soldiers trained for capturing targets." Cephalo explained.

A door opened on the spacecraft before it had even landed, showing armed Kinzoku on the inside.

"I'd suggest running!" Cephalo suggested.

The pixelians immediately tried to access their IP devices, but they were jammed, just like before.

Avester didn't want the chaos to happen again.

The spacecraft landed, and 5 Kinzoku soldiers were dispatched, and Shane tried to fight them off with his special abilities, but was quickly overwhelmed.

Avester and Krow couldn't fight, and had no choice but to be captured.

Just as he and Krow were being taken to the ship, he saw the other soldiers try and attack Cephalo, knowing of his failing of the mission.

He tried to escape being captured, but before he could go and save Cephalo, the gate slammed shut, leaving him, Krow, and and unconscious Shane inside of a small metal room with other Kinzoku.

Avester tried punching the Kinzoku, but it did not do anything to phase them.  
Krow was in a corner, terrified of what's happening.

Avester felt the same surge of energy he felt when trying to save Lee, and began to punch at the Kinzoku much harder than before, but still not even denting them.

He was then smacked across the head by one soldier's tentacles, and knocked out.


	14. An ancient native to the portalverse.

Avester woke up on a cold surface.

When he opened his eyes, he could see that he was on some kind of glass floor, and there was nothing but a dark abyss below.

He sat right up, realizing he's no longer in his own world.

Looking around, he saw that he was in some kind of glass box, hovering over an abyss of blackness.

Around him were other glass boxes, Krow in his own, fidgeting with his fingers, and Shane in his own, sitting around and looking at another abysmal void above.

There was another glass box containing someone that Avester hadn't recognized.

Avester tried to hit against the walls of his box, to break out, but made no progress, and realized that he wouldn't know where to go even if he did break out.

He sat down and began to think about what Digit had said earlier, and why he brought him into that snowy world that he's seen before.

A new voice broke his thought.

"Morning." They said.

Avester looked over at the unfamiliar pixelian in the other glass box.

He was a man in a green suit and green hat, and had neatly kept facial hair.

"I'm Captain Finn. What brings you here, today, young pixelian?" He asked Avester.

Avester widened his eyes. Captain Finn, it's the one Digit told him about.

From the abyss below, a much larger, much darker Kinzoku floated up, with rods implanted into their head.

"I see you're awake." They said in a deep robotic voice, also sounding as if it wasn't designed to speak the language of the pixelians.

"You three, Avester, Shane, and Krow," He gained the attention of everyone.

"I am Volox, leader of the Technaverse, which is this universe,"  
"I've captured you three, as I'm attempting to capture all swapsouls and keep them safe from Captain Finn."  
  
"Swapsouls?" Avester asked Volox.

Volox did not explain what a "swapsoul" was.

Shane, in his own glass box, tilted his head.

"Even if I don't know what a swapsoul is, why keep them from Captain Finn? He's our leader." Shane pointed out.

Volox did not respond.

Finn, from his glass box widened his eyes at Avester.

"Y-you're a swapsoul?! Break us out, come on!" He began to beg Avester.

Avester didn't know anything about what a swapsoul was, and how he'd be able to even break out.

Volox gave Finn a mean look, and shook his glass box, knocking him around inside a bit, before floating back down into the void below.

"Avester, Shane, Krow, don't listen to the Kinzoku, they're capturing you for power! They only want energy!" Finn began to explain to the other three pixelians.

Suddenly, before Avester could think of a reply, alarms sounded, and from one of the walls far across the void, broke through a Kinzoku.

It was Cephalo, however now his previously orange coloring and energy inside of himself, is now green, giving him a bright green eye, with smaller green eyes around his face.

He seemed a lot more focused and sophisticated, and swatted away other Kinzoku like nothing, and flew up to all of the pixelians' glass box containers, freeing all of them.

He grabbed Avester, Shane, Krow, and Captain Finn in his arms, opened a green portal, and flew through, closing it behind him.

They were all back at the snowy place that Digit had brought Avester to before.

After letting all of them go, Finn stood back up on his feet.

"A Kinzoku? With power from the portalverse's Heart Core? How? Why save us?" He asked Cephalo all of the questions.

Cephalo obviously hesitated to explain.

Digit stepped out from the tower, his eyes glowing green.

"I've given him some of my powers. I am a portaloid." He explained, leaving Captain Finn shocked, and even Cephalo.

"Portaloid?" Shane asked.

"An ancient native to the portalverse, with direct powers from the Heart Core," Cephalo Explained, still surprised.

"But I thought all of them were wiped out..."

"The Kinzoku are harvesting our Heart Core 'for the greater good', and it should not happen, they don't know what they're getting themselves into!" Finn explained to everyone, mostly Digit and Cephalo.

"And why should I help you?" Digit asked Finn, his eyes still green aglow.

Avester, looking at Digit's glowing green eyes, and remembering Shane's, wondered if maybe Shane was also a portaloid in disguise.

"Look, I apologize on behalf of our ancestors, it's not as if I wanted to-" Finn started apologizing to Digit from out of nowhere.

Cephalo didn't even know what Finn was on about.

"Shut it." Digit simply stated.


	15. Portalverse's Heart

The constant sound of metal and machinery sounded in the background as Volox hovered near a massive orange holographic screen.

He used his tentacles to type out different commands on the screen, and types in some commands to send out another planet-sized ship to the Portalverse, and absorb some of their Heart Core's energy.

Before he sent the command, he remembered what Finn said about the administrator locked away inside of the Heart Core, and if it were true, what bad that could do, but sent the command anyway.

A Kinzoku approached Volox, one of the elite Kinzoku.

Volox turned around and saw them raise one of their tentacles to form a satellite dish, and speak to him.

That is how the Kinzoku have always spoken to each other, by sending communication data to each other with their own satellite dishes.

"Why do we have priorities for the Portalverse's Heart Core over everything else?" The elite Kinzoku asked Volox.

Volox did not tell them anything, as it was considered classified for everyone else but himself, but he knew exactly why.

And so, they had to go to the nearest universe to them, and borrow from their Heart Core. The Portalverse.

The elite Kinzoku leaves the room to the ship boarding station, and Volox decides to follow as well, boarding his own ship.


	16. I don't want to see all of you die young.

Avester, Krow, and Shane all sit in some comfortable reception chairs, Cephalo floating nearby, and Digit deciding not to come along. They were inside of the "Portal Headquarters", the main building that Captain Finn lives and works in, as well as several other employees.

Their goal being to maintain law and order in all of the Portalverse, as well as protect and properly use the large green Heart Core, located not too far away.

They are all seated in a large reception room with green painted walls, and a receptionist across from them, with a door beside them.

They door opened, and Captain Finn walked out with a stack of files in his arms, approaching the group.

"These files here, explain in detail why the Kinzoku should NOT continue harvesting the Heart Core." Finn explained, as he handed the three pixelians and Cephalo folders.

"Why, of all people in the universe, are you showing us newbies these things?" Krow asked Finn, as everyone began opening the files.

"You three are very important, you just... Don't know it yet." Finn explained.

"That's why Digit set up a mission with me to save you all." Cephalo elaborated on.

"Why is everyone being so secretive? What's a swapsoul, and why are we important?" Shane started to ask.

Before Finn could explain anything, alarms began to sound across the whole building, with an employee running into the room from the door that Finn came from.

"The heart is under heavy attack! We've already dispatched military bots to fly out!" They shouted.

"Get my ship ready." Finn ordered.

"Sir, why don't I suggest that you have other administrators go out there instead of yourself?" He suggested.

3 people stepped out from behind the employee. They were the other administrators, people who are sort of the right-hand men of Finn.

First stepped out a pixelian in a suit, and a marvelous mustache.  
"Sir George at your service."

Another stepped forward, another pixelian with an orange beanie hat.

"Parry, ready to go, sir."

Last, stepped out a different kind of creature, a creature made of shadowy smoke, and wore a purple robe over themselves, with green tentacles for arms.  
"Neo, ready for duty."

Cephalo looked at Neo.

"How did an Abyssonian manage to get to the Portalverse, and become an administrator? Aren't you native to the Netherverse?" He asked.

"Netherverse?" Shane butted in.

"It's the _actual_ name of the Nether World, as you call it." He explained.

Neo cleared his throat.

"I was brought here via the use of my green scroll. Now, we need to get to business." He told Cephalo, in a professional voice.

"I understand you're all ready for battle, but I don't want to see all of you die young." Finn explained, the sirens still going off.

Cephalo chimed in.  
"Well, the Kinzoku don't necessarily like Pixelians, but they're totally fine with Abyssonians, Neo should be good!"

"The pixelians tried to butt into the Technaverse long ago, and call it their own, and we didn't like that, so we moved them to the next universe over." He finished explaining.

Finn paid attention to Cephalo's talking, and the 3 administrators sneaked back out, and went to the ship docking station to board their ships and prepare to fight.

Finn quickly realized this, and began to run through the door, and down the hall, to the ship docking station, the others following behind.

When there, Finn boarded his ship, but let the others on, confident in their abilities, not knowing that really only Cephalo had any ability of the 3 other pixelians.

The front of the building opened, letting Finn pilot the ship out to space, and eventually to the Heart Core.

When it came into view, he immediately saw a fleet of ships sucking the energy of the Heart Core dry, dimming the glowing green core down to a dim green.

"Wait, no!" Finn exclaimed before picking up the pace on his ship.


	17. Turn back now!

Finn piloting his ship, still containing Avester, Krow, Shane and Cephalo, began to fire green lasers at the orange ships ahead, and stopped when the lasers were being deflected off of orange force fields.

"They won't stop unless they complete their mission, believe me!" Cephalo warned Finn.

Shane began to wonder why Cephalo has no problem opposing his race so suddenly.

Finn shifted the ship into full speed, and zipped towards the fleet, as the Heart Core's energy got darker and darker.

For a moment, it felt as time stopped.

Everyone looked out of the windows and at the Heart Core.

The top of the core had exploded, releasing a black mass of lightning and energy from within.

Finn knew exactly what it was.

He turned his ship right around and zipped as fast as possible away from the Heart Core, running from the black mass.

"We're doomed!" He exclaimed at the others.

Cephalo's eyes flashed red for a moment.

"Wait, I'm picking up something!" He exclaimed.

The black mass sent out tendrils of energy towards various ships in the Kinzoku fleet, and blew up most of them.

"Turn back, my brother was on one of those ships!" Cephalo shouted at Finn.

"No, we must get as far away from that thing as possible!" Finn shouted back.

"Turn back now!" Cephalo argued.

Just then, the black mass zipped right in front of Finn's ship in an instant, opening a red-colored portal, and sending them to another place.

Everything went black for everyone.


	18. Ah fiddle me chin hair, get in the basement!

The ground was pleasantly warm, and the air not-so-pleasantly hot, and hard to breathe in.

Avester opened his eyes to see himself laying on a hot, red, rocky ground.

He pushed himself up, and stood, regaining his balance.

Around him are vast, dark, and red rocky caves, and none of his friends are in sight, he is alone.

He begins to walk down through the cave ahead of him, walking for a short while.

After passing a couple of what looks to be old abandoned metal buildings, he eventually encountered what looked like an old man in a robe.

"Hello?" Avester asked, slowly approaching the old man.

He reached out his hand, but suddenly jumped back when the old man turned around to reveal themselves to not even be a man.

It was a green orc-like creature, with dead grey eyes, and it wore a robe and held a staff.

It blindly began to wave around it's glowing staff, sparking purple energy in random directions.

Avester took the staff from their hands and began to quickly continue walking down the cave, using the staff as a light source.

He walks for a short while, occasionally shouting his friends' names, but to no avail, he decided to rest on a nearby rock, and think about everything. Everything in his life so far.

He began to think of Lee, and tried to shake the thought out of his mind, and looked over to see something shining nearby.

He got up and approached it, discovering it to be an old, iron hut built into a wall.

He inches towards the door on the front, and begins to knock.

Suddenly, from the middle of the door, a slot opened up, showing an old pixelian-like eye behind it.

The slot shuts, and after a minute of locks being unlocked from the other side, the door opens, revealing a strange man on the other side.

He was a little short, and looked almost like a Pixelian, but wasn't. He had pointed ears, and a long nose, as well as a grey mustache, and a blind eye.

"How in the nether world did ye' find me place, eh lad?" He asked in a thick accent.

"Uh, well... I don't even know where I am, to be honest... I was in a spaceship with some of my friends, and we were fleeing from this huge black thing," He began to explain.

"And then the next moment, it opens a portal in front of us, and then I wake up on the ground a little further back."

"Well that sounds like a pile o' socks and stockin's don't it?" He asked.

Avester looked at him with a confused look, before he let out a loud laugh, and motioned Avester to come in.

They both walked in, and Avester seated himself on a nearby chair, with the other person sitting at a desk.

"Me name's Gilbert, I'm a nethian, natives to this here Netherverse." He introduced himself, before picking up a pipe from his desk and putting it in his mouth.

"I'm Avester." Avester replied.

"Ye lil' behind be stuck in the deep nether! This place be a real darlin' to look at, but she'll bite ye' on the arm, best be on high alert." Gilbert explained.

"...What?" Avester asked, unable to understand Gilbert's slang.

"This Deep Nether be a dangerous place, all the feral and unstable monsters get thrown down here to live," he explained.

"I only live down here 'cuz me job, lad! I scavenge for rare loot and whatnot, no one else be brave enough to search this old place."

"Well... Do you know how I can find my friends down here?" Avester asked Gilbert.

"Ohoho! When ye' enter th' deep nether usin' scrolls, portals or whatever, ye' gonna end up in ANY random part of th' whole place!"

"Unlike you and yer Portalverse, with open space and planets, our Netherverse is all one big endless cave!"

Avester sat and thought about that for a moment. An entire universe not made of planets, but rather, the whole universe is just one massive cave.

"I want-" Avester was cut off by the sound of a boom in the distance.

"Ah fiddle me chin hair, get in the basement, Aviator!" He ordered Avester, before running to the other side of the room, and opening a wooden hatch, waiting for Avester to come in.

"Well come on now! 'Less ye wanna be turned into fried fish!" He urged Avester, with Avester entering the basement, Gilbert behind, and the booms getting closer.

The basement had a dimly-lit forge on one end, and an anvil and unfinished sword next to it.

"Ah, damn me dysfunctional brain, I forgot me sword." He remarked, just as the booms stopped.

Avester stood on the basement floor, as Gilbert stood on the wooden stairs that lead up.

He slowly lifted up the basement hatch, and looked around, opening it all the way, looking back at Avester and giving out a sigh.

Avester saw a large robotic arm swoop down and grab Gilbert up.

Avester ran up after Gilbert, and saw the front of the house was blown out, and there was a hulking, massive robot, but with a head similar looking to one of the portalverse's round bots, even smiling and everything, except this one was red.

The bot turned around and began running away from Gilbert's hut, running down the cave.

"Apple pie! Look in th' drawer!" Gilbert echoed across the cave before he went out of sight.

Avester looked around for a drawer, and remembered Gilbert's desk, and upon opening the drawer there, he spotted a rolled up blueprint, some small red coins, and a button.

Upon pressing the button, the wall near the desk opened up, revealing an armory of deep purple armor and weapons.

Avester didn't know what he was supposed to do, but took a deep purple helmet, and shadowy purple sword, but also saw some kind of dark purple machine to be put on his back.

A label above it read "Dark Jet pack".

"Simple enough, right?" Avester asked himself before donning the helmet and jet pack.

He began to run in the direction of where Gilbert was taken, and tried to see if he could operate the jet pack to boost him, but it failed at first.

Just then, it turned right on, and he began to go forward at an incredible speed.


	19. I am error.

With the help of the dark jet pack, Avester managed to catch up to the large robot who had captured Gilbert.

They were on a cliff leading into a huge opening in the cave, with towering walls and the cave roof high above, the floor low below.

The bot turned towards the cliff and jumped off, but before Avester went to try and rescue Gilbert, the bot had transformed into a massive red bot, hovering in the air, and holding Gilbert still.

Avester flew over to it and struck it's back with the sword, never having used a sword before.

Avester still hovering in the air, the bot turned around with a big smiling face, clearly unable to change it.

It tossed Gilbert back to the cave, and turned it's arms into large blades for fighting.

"Uh... Wh-What do I do, Gilbert?!" Avester asked, unsure about facing against a huge robot alone, with no prior experience in combat.

The robot swung one of it's arm blades at Avester, only to have it miss when Avester dashed out of the way, thanks to the dark jet pack he had on.

He took his sword and swiped at the bot's side, putting a large gnash in the side of it's body.

"See that orange wall over there? Give it a punch!" The bot randomly exclaimed.

Avester realized that this bot might actually be a tutorial bot gone rogue, there was obviously no orange walls nearby to punch, not during a battle between him and the robot.

"Just run, Aviator!" Gilbert shouted at Avester.

Avester took the chance and dashed away from the bot, grabbing up Gilbert and flying through the cave back to Gilbert's cave.

Gilbert took the helmet and sword from Avester and wiggled out of his grip, falling out mid-flight.

Avester stopped to see Gilbert running back towards the robot, with the dark helmet and sword equipped.

The bot approached quickly as Gilbert also ran towards it, charging some kind of purple energy in the blade, and jumping up to stab it directly in the face.

"Error, error, error, I am error." The bot began to announce at is malfunctioning due to the damage caused by Gilbert.

"Just run! Go back to me place!" Gilbert ordered Avester.

Avester moved a little, but still stayed to see Gilbert finish off the robot, completely destroying it.

Gilbert jumped off of the now destroyed bot, and held his own face is if he were holding back tears.

Avester turned off the dark jet pack and hopped down to walk towards Gilbert.

Gilbert sat down on the deactivated arm of the large bot and sighed.

"What's wrong?" Avester asked.

"Nothin', get goin'." Gilbert replied.

Avester stood there until he knew what was wrong, even if he only just met Gilbert, he was already a friend of his.

Gilbert looked up at Avester.

"Long time ago, I found this wee lil' bot, all alone and lost down here," Gilbert began to explain.

"Lil' lass was a 'tutorial bot' from the portalverse, n' I took 'er in as me own,"  
"She'd be helpin' me with my work n' such, was a sweet bot, could think on 'er own too, not just some random built bot that was just made fer one thing only."  
  
Avester sat down as he continued listening to Gilbert's story.

"One day though..." Gilbert sighed.  
"The lil' bot was runnin' low on 'er power, she be away from the portalverse's Heart Core fer too long, and... So I gave 'er some of th' netherverse's Heart Core energy so she'd not be dyin' on me,"

"T'was a bad Idea. She became rogue, n' stole a whole lotta parts from me n' ran away, makin' herself into some big ol' brute of a robot,"

"She always came by to pay me a visit, but destroy me stuff. Always thought that killin' me was also a good thing too, but it ain't, of course."

Avester looked at the destroyed robot, this big robot was once a normal tutorial bot like the one Avester met when he first ever woke up to the world around him.

"Y'know, sorta glad I put 'er outta 'er misery though, she'd be suffering down here every moment, don't want that fer her." Gilbert remarked, before holding out the dark purple sword towards Avester.

"Here, take this, n' keep the jet pack too, ye be needin' it more than an old coot like me," Gilbert explained as he gave Avester the sword, and also pulled something out of his pocket.

He presented Avester with a compass of some sort.

"This be the deep compass, it be helpin' ye find yer way outta the deep nether, and back up to the normal nether. People up there might help a fellow like yerself."

Avester took the compass, and looked at it, as it strongly pointed towards one direction.


	20. But where is Avester?

Cephalo was floating through dark red caves, carrying an unconscious Shane with him, the only sources of light being his own green energy glow, and occasional pools of lava.

"Shane's always unconscious..." He remarked to himself, before detecting a spike of a nearby life form behind him.

He looked back and tried to use his many eyes to see what was back there, but saw nothing.

He turned back to the direction he was initially going, and suddenly saw an Abyssoinian, a black, foggy energy of a creature, but this one wearing a green robe, and having orange hands.

The green robed creature dashed towards Cephalo, only to miss Cephalo by an inch when he moved out of the way.

He continued forward at a faster pace, trying to avoid conflict with another thing, but after it kept pestering him for too long, he eventually decided to swing one of his steel tentacles at it, only for it to fail as it went right through.

He looked around for something that could possibly be used as a weapon.

Up ahead, an orange glow shined around the corner, and so Cephalo floated over there, still carrying Shane.

He looked around the corner of the wall, and saw a large, flaming, glowing orange blob with a face, looking back.

The blob closed its eyes and charged at Cephalo, smacking into the side of his main body part, heating up the side a bit.

"Yowch!" Cephalo exclaimed in pain as he accidentally dropped Shane in a corner.

Just as he went to retrieve Shane, a savage robed orc approached and began to cast purple magic at Cephalo.

"Seems like my natural Kinzoku powers and my gifted Portaloid powers don't work so well down here..." Cephalo thought to himself.

Before Cephalo charged an attack, a green lightning-fast fist struck out and knocked out all 3 of the opposing monsters, defeating them.

It was Shane, who was now awake, and fully functional.

Shane looked around the place. Dark red rocky cave walls, occasional pools of lava, savage and feral monsters.

"Where are we, exactly?" Shane asked Cephalo.

"I assume this is the 'Deep Nether', since I recall once going here on duty." He replied.

"Huh, I-" Shane began to speak, before being distracted by a large purple flash of light somewhere down the cave.

They both looked towards it, and began to make their way there, to see what was up.

They eventually both found what looked to be a super massive open room in the cave, with towering walls, and a roof and floor so far up and down that they're shrouded in black fog.

There was also a stairway that lead down into it.

The purple glow they had seen previously, seemed to be flashing down at the bottom of the cave, in sort of a signal.

"I think we should check that out, it could be our friends." Cephalo Suggested.

Shane nodded, and they both began to go down the stairs.

"..."  
"Hey, Shane?" Cephalo got Shane's attention, as they both continued downstairs.

"Hm?"

"I remember when I was much younger... My brother and I would always play ball whenever we took our breaks from military training." He recited a memory.

Shane wondered why Cephalo decided to randomly bring up this topic.

Cephalo had been thinking of his brother. He remembered the last time he saw him, before their mission.

"You know, the last time I saw my brother," Cephalo started.

"King Volox explained to us what our mission was, and named out every soldier that will be assigned to said mission,"  
"My name was on the list, of course, but this time, my brother, Thulho, was not,"  
"Every mission we've ever done, was together. I tried to protest and have him come along too, but he was already assigned another task." Cephalo told his story.

"I-" Shane got cut off by Cephalo.

"When everyone in the room began to go to their personal rooms, Thulho and I stood there for a moment and talked,"  
"He told me his mission was to prepare for whatever was inside of the Portalverse's Heart Core, thanks to the info from Finn,"  
"An he promised me that he'd be back for movies and fun on the weekend like every weekend."

Cephalo looked upwards, remembering everything.

"Thulho was on one of the destroyed ships from when that large black energy escaped." He finished.

"...I'm sorry to hear that, Cephalo." Shane gave his sympathy.

They both eventually made it to the bottom of the stairs. The bottom was a very wide open area, laid with ruined white tiles and occasional ruined pillars around the sides.

Dead-center of the room was a small purple vortex portal.

They began to approach the portal, and then saw two other figures on the other side approach.

Shane and Cephalo readied their battle stances, in case of more monsters.

The other two approached, and they were Krow and Captain Finn, Krow now having a torn-up blue newbie jumpsuit, and Captain Finn's green suit being slightly burned.

"Hey! It's Cephalo and Shane!" Krow shouted in excitement.

"But where is Avester?" Finn asked.

Shane looked around.

"Thought he'd be with you..." He told them.

The purple portal beside them began to spiral open, but none of them dared to enter it, they didn't know where it would lead and what it could do.

"We need to get back as soon as possible, and with ALL of the people who entered in the first place!" Finn exclaimed, clearly panicking.

"Yeah he's been kinda kooky the whole time." Krow explained to Shane and Cephalo while spinning a finger around his head.

"Let's look for Avester then." Cephalo suggested.

"The Netherverse is as big as our Portalverse! That'd take infinity!" Finn shouted.

"What'll we do?" Shane questioned.

"You should stay." An unfamiliar voice sounded behind them.

They all turned in unison to see a large knight, in molten obsidian black armor, atop a black magma steed.

The knight drew a massive black sword with cracks of molten lava all through it, and bright orange flames.

"You four, are now inside of the ancient chamber of the Deep Nether. You must face me before you can enter the portal." He explained, in a gruff, deep voice.


	21. We fight because we have no choice.

The knight swung his sword at the portal, deactivating it and leaving a portal frame behind.

He hopped off of his horse, as it galloped away and faded into black smoke.

"You all seem a lot stronger than most others who come to challenge me." He remarked, looking at Shane through the visor of his horned obsidian helmet.

Finn readied his administrator powers, as Shane readied his own strange green powers.

Krow readied a martial arts stance, and Cephalo prepared what Portaloid and Technaverse energy he had left.

"We didn't come here to fight or challenge anyone." Shane explained to the knight.

"Too late my friend, the only way you can stop this fight is if I am beaten, or you four are dead." The knight glared at Shane with a flaring purple eye underneath, which to Shane, somehow seemed familiar, but he didn't understand how in the world it was.

"I am Styx, 7th knight of Kotka, guardian of the 7th chamber of the Deep Nether," The knight, named Styx, began to speak.

"It is my duty to guard the portal, and slay all who enter, but let any who defeat me, pass."

Styx readied his sword, and just before striking, Shane bolted forward and used his green energy-powered fist to strike Styx's hot molten armor, but pulled away immediately after feeling the burn of what felt like raw fire.

Styx swung his sword at Cephalo, with him just float-jumping over it, and wrapping his tentacles around the blade.

His tentacles were heat-proof, so it proved useful in this situation.

He reversed the sword swing back at Styx, knocking him in the head with his own blade.

Styx back flipped, and dashed directly towards Captain Finn, attempting to stab him, but Finn avoiding the attack, still getting a fiery slice along his arm.

Finn charged his power into his foot and stomped an energy wave around him, with Styx avoiding it with a single jump in the air, however Krow was too close, and his own leg got injured from the wave.

"How clumsy, for the leader of their own entire universe, Captain Finn." Styx remarked.

Shane, still holding his scorched hand, looked at Styx try and fight Finn.

"It's pretty dishonorable of you to randomly pick who to fight, dirty tricks like those-" He was interrupted by Styx.

"The Knights of Kotka don't fight for glory or honor, my friend, we fight because we have no choice." He explained as he switched his focus to Cephalo.

Shane quickly began to realize that Styx had not attacked him or Krow, and only barely fighting Cephalo, but going full force at Finn.

He began to charge green energy into his non-scorched hand, and cast a green bolt at Styx stunning him for a moment.

"Quick, Cephalo, his helmet!" Shane ordered Cephalo.

Cephalo wrapped his tentacles around Styx's helmet, and tugged it off as hard as he could, knocking Styx over and revealing his face.

They all looked and froze.

Styx was Digit.


	22. Avester, he's betrayed us!

Avester walks through the red, hot caves, by himself, as he follows the direction that the enchanted compass in his hands points to.

He begins to think about everything that's happened. He's seen everything, from strange pixelians turning out to be an ancient race, thieves, alien ships from other universes, befriending someone and seeing them die, befriending one of the aliens, and even traveled to 2 other universes, including the Netherverse, to seeing black energies explode from the center of a massive green ball of energy.

He begins to wonder if maybe this is just something normal for pixelians like himself.

He wonders if maybe none of this is considered too odd, maybe it's all normal.

Avester heard a noise for a moment, and saw an unfamiliar person run out from behind a rock and set his hand on Avester's face, using some kind of green energy to instantly put him to sleep.

After what felt like mere moments, Avester woke up on a sleeping cot on the floor of an old iron hut, still inside of the Deep Nether.

He sees another unfamiliar pixelian sitting at a table, sipping a glass of tea, with another glass beside him.

"Oh! You're awake," He noticed, as he got up and handed Avester the other glass of tea.

"Sorry for putting you to sleep like that." He explained.

Avester looked up at his face, he had somewhat long blonde hair, and glowing green eyes, similar to how Digit's and Shane's were.

"Who... Are you?" Avester asks, accepting the tea from the stranger.

The stranger ignores the question, going back to the table and looking out of the nearby window.

"I need to keep you and your friends from harm, and find the exit portal as soon as possible... But something's up with the portal." The stranger explained, sipping his tea.

He points out the window, and Avester gets up to see.

Outside is a massive open room, with a deactivated portal frame in the center.

Around it is some kind of knight laying on their back, and what looks to be Avester's friends around them.

"My friends, I need to see them!" Avester insisted, getting ready to exit the iron hut.

"You know, there's someone down there more dangerous than any of the others combined..." The stranger told Avester, stopping him in his tracks to listen.

"And I'm not talking about that Knight." He finished.

Avester goes back to the window to see his friends.

"They can't be dangerous, they're all genuinely good people!" He told the stranger.

He looked back for a moment and saw his jet pack and sword leaning on the ground, and went to grab them, and return to the window.

He climbs out of the window, and uses the jet pack to float down to his group of friends.

"Hey, stay here!" The stranger yelled, getting up and climbing out the window, following behind.

Avester approaches to see all of his friends unconscious, except Finn, who was now fighting the knight, which lacked a helmet, but Avester couldn't quite see who it was.

"Avester, he's betrayed us!!" Finn shouted at Avester, Avester still not knowing what's going on.

The knight swung at Finn.

"Finn just wants to take all of the swapsouls for himself and use their power for his machines!" The knight yelled, in a familiar voice.

  
It couldn't be, could it?

Finn used an energy sword to slash the knight in the face, knocking him back towards Avester.

He got to see the knight's face.

It was Digit.


	23. They were reborn as pixelians.

Avester looked at the knight, who was Digit, and began to get really confused.

Was Digit and Captain Finn just fighting to the death? Did Digit knock all of his friends out?

The stranger from before came down behind Avester, but with a scarf obscuring his face.

"Stop, Finn." He demanded Finn.

Avester was looking back and forth between Finn and Digit, he was unable to choose who he was supposed to side with.

Finn raised his energy sword, ready to impale Digit, but the stranger jumped forward and tackled Finn to the ground.

"Who are you?!" Finn asked the stranger as they both got up.

The stranger pulled off his scarf, revealing his face to Finn.

Finn's eyes widened at the sight.

"A-a-Axyl?!" He shouted.

"The rogue administrator I had to lock inside of the Heart Core!"

Avester looked at the stranger, named Axyl, and became even more confused. Was Axyl that black mass from earlier that sent them all to the deep nether?!

"I'm not the villain that Finn makes me to be!" Axyl explained to Avester.

"I'm here to protect and conserve the Portaloids, Finn just wants to enslave them!" He shouted.

"He is false!" Finn shouted at Avester.

Avester couldn't take what was going on, and started to panic, tears running down his face.

They both tried to argue to Avester that they are right and the other is wrong.

Avester began to look around him, and spotted a small cave entrance, with a black figure that seemed to slither back behind a wall.

"Avester, Finn only needs you and your friends for his own personal gain, he's not helping you!" He explained.

Before Finn could argue again, Avester took a breath.

"Why?" He asked, calmly.

Finn sighed.

"Fine, I'll tell you." He promised Avester and Axyl.

"Before you were created, Avester, something that the Kinzoku did, ended up messing with almost all of the existing portaloids left in the Portalverse,"  
"They were seemingly erased, but their souls carried on, and somehow managed to be reborn..."

"But not back into Portaloids. They were reborn as Pixelians. _Swapsouls_."  
  


Avester looked at his hands.

He was a portaloid, just like Digit?

Shane, Krow, and hundreds of others were really just portaloids trapped in pixelian bodies?

Is this why they all have some degree of power?

"The power of the portaloids are immense, that's why I need it for my experiments..." Finn admitted.

"Yeah, and I'm the administrator who protested against his plans to enslave the portaloids for their power. I was locked in the center of the heard, and Finn made a story up to scare others from unlocking me." Axyl chimed in.

It all seemed to come together now.

"Why reveal everything to me, here and now?" Avester asked Finn.

He stayed silent.

"I broke out of the Heart Core not because it's power was being absorbed by the Kinzoku," Axyl began to explain.

"I broke out because this black mass of energy blew the top right off. I tried to use my powers to catch up to you all in Finn's ship, but we all got sucked into the Deep Nether..."

They all froze for a moment.

"What the hell is that black mass of energy then?" Avester asked.


	24. Not good, my boss is missing.

A loud pulse of energy sounds across space, waking up the unconscious Thulho, another Kinzoku, and brother to Cephalo, though still only has his native orange energy.

Thulho opened his robotic eyes, and looked around, gaining his surroundings.

He saw nothing but debris, floating alongside himself in the empty space, near the very dim green heart of the Portalverse.

Every pump of energy the heart circulates just makes it slightly weaker each time, especially with the top part of it blasted out by some black mass of energy before, the same black mass of energy that took out all of the Kinzoku spacecrafts and left.

Thulho realizing that the black mass is now gone, sends and SOS signal to any who might pick it up, sure that there has to be another beside himself that is still alive.

He uses his weak energy to hover himself over to a large piece of debris with supplies scattered around it, and picked up a laser gun, an energy cell, and a KS Tracker.

The KS Tracker was a device meant to track down other on-duty Kinzoku, but only if you know their ID number.

He input Cephalo's ID number, in hopes to find his brother amongst this debris, but after trying, there was no signal.

Thulho tossed the KS Tracker away in frustration, unable to find anyone else. He was alone, floating in space, around the debris of a terribly fatal mission.

As a last hope, he consumes the energy cell, which is essentially the food of the Kinzoku, and begins to float out and find a nearby planet on his own.

Before getting far, he heard a voice behind himself. It was something that he didn't recognize as Pixelian nor Kinzoku.

"Hey." They got his attention.

Thulho turned around to see an abyssonian, which are native to the Netherverse, wearing a space suit of sorts.

"My name is Neo, I flew out here with some of my friends to help fight," They explained.

"After that black mass erupted however, I woke up floating in space. Couldn't find anyone, anyone alive that is." They finished explaining.

"Do you know where we can rest for a bit at least?" Thulho immediately asked, knowing that though his body can survive in space, it can't survive forever.

Neo's eyes widened as he remembered something, and pulled what looks like a purple scroll from one of the pockets of his suit.

"I have this emergency scroll I wrote myself, it will lead me and any grabbing me directly to my home village in the upper Netherverse," He explained.

"Grab on, we can go there."

Thulho wrapped one of his metal tentacles around Neo's body as Neo held up the scroll, opened it, and watched the words glow for a moment, before everything went black.

After a brief moment of fuzzy vision and a blast of heat, they both wound up in what looks to be the Netherverse, in the middle of a small village of iron huts.

Most of the villagers stopped in place to see what the two who appeared were.

The villagers were mostly the foggy black abyssonians, some were the goblin-like Nethians, and a couple were the green nether orcs.

Most of the villagers were scared of Thulho, never having seen a large robotic octopus creature like a kinzoku before.

Neo took off his space helmet to reveal his shadowy face and purple hood underneath, being a type of "robe caster", as the Pixelians might call them.

"Listen, everyone, something bad happened at my work place, and-"  
He stopped for a moment and slapped his face with his green tentacle arm.

"I forgot that they don't speak Pixelian." He remembered.

Neo began speaking in his native language, the universal language of the Netherverse, explaining to the villagers that something bad had happened in his work place, and that Thulho is peaceful and will harm no one.

An abyssonian wearing red armor ran out from behind some villagers, and tackle hugged Neo.

"I missed you so much!" He exclaimed, stepping back from neo after the hug.

Neo's eyes lit, and he turned towards Thulho.

"Thulho, this is my younger brother, Mat."  
Thulho looked at Neo, wondering how he even learned his name.

"Mat, this is a kinzoku, their name is Thulho!" Neo finished introducing the two.

Mat and Thulho awkwardly shook hands, despite neither technically having hands.

"How is work, exactly, Neo?" Mat asked his older brother.

"Not good, my boss is missing, and some powerful thing appeared in the Portalverse." He explained.

Neo looked over to the village gate nearby, which was open, and lead to a flight of stairs.

Coming up from the stairs, Neo saw a familiar face.

An older Nethian, who lived in the deep nether, who would always visit this village when he can.

The nethian approached Neo and the group.

"Hey Gilbert, it's been a while!" Neo greeted the nethian.

Gilbert grunted.

"What's up?" Mat asked him, also knowing him.  
"Too much goin' on." He grumbled on about his problems, mentioning something about a pixelian he met, and how he shouldn't have sent him off on his own.

Neo felt as if there was something else troubling Gilbert.

"There's something else bothering you." He pointed out, but Gilbert ignored it.

"Did you mention you saw a pixelian?" Thulho butted in and asked Gilbert, which was someone he didn't personally know.

"Some lad, named Averbell er somethin', Avester I think?" He replied.

Neo and Thulho immediately recognized the name.

"Avester? Wasn't he one of the pixelians that Captain Finn had with him before the start of the mission?" He asked himself.

"Avester was one of our captives at one point, and my own brother broke him out!" Thulho remembered.

Thulho realized that wherever Avester is, Cephalo might also be.

"Do you know where Avester might be?" Thulho asked Gilbert.

"Probably at th' closest Deep Neth'r portal to me hut." Gilbert replied.

"Do you remember seeing another of my kind with him?" Thulho asked.

"No." Gilbert replied, before walking past them to do whatever it was he was there to do first.

Neo pulled out another purple scroll from his suit, this one darker than the last.

"How many of those things do you have?" Thulho asked.

"This one will allow us to teleport to the gate that separates the upper Netherverse, and the Deep Nether, since non-natives can't pass through." He explained to Thulho, urging him to grab on and teleport to the Deep nether with Neo.


	25. Please forgive me for this.

Avester is flying through random caves at a high speed with his dark jet pack, slashing away at any random feral monsters that got in his way, trying to avoid breaking down in tears after all of this information, and knowing he's never going to just live normally.

He's a portaloid. Not a pixelian. A portaloid being a very endangered species that the leader of his home universe wants to enslave, and all but one of his friends are _also_ portaloids.

The big enemy that they feared, the admin trapped inside of the heart, was really the good guy in all of this.

He couldn't handle all of this sudden information, not even knowing what's real or not.

Behind himself, he sees Axyl and Finn both going after him using their admin powers, both trying to stop each other from reaching him.

Behind _them_ is Cephalo, also flying fast, carrying Shane and Krow.

Digit is nowhere to be seen.

Cephalo dashed right in between Axyl and Finn to catch up to Avester, who was also still going forward.

He reached out a tentacle and wrapped it around Avester, grabbing tight.

Avester squirmed around to try and escape, but dared not harm his kinzoku friend, so eventually gave in.

Cephalo, holding the three pixelians, looks back at the fighting Axyl and Finn, and sighs.

"I'm sorry, Avester. Please forgive me for this." He told Avester, before suddenly opening an orange portal and flying through, ending up inside of a large futuristic metal room.

The portal closed behind them, leaving Axyl and Finn in the Deep Nether.

Avester looked around in shock, seeing the king of kinzoku before them, Volox.

Around all of them were kinzoku guards.

"Thank you for your work, Cephalo." The king thanked Cephalo, as Cephalo's green portalverse color returned to the native orange Technaverse colors.

Avester looked at Cephalo in betrayal.

"Wha-"  
"Was this all a lie?! What...?! I..." Avester was at a loss of words, realizing that maybe Cephalo wasn't a friend. Maybe Cephalo was making everything up just so he could gain their trust.

"I'm sorry Avester. I had to make it all up, I had to lie and say I was 'fired' from my work to gain your trust," Cephalo began speaking, as his warm orange robotic eyes met with Avester's.

Despite being metallic and seemingly artificial, Cephalo's eyes seemed to show sincerity.

"My true mission was to spy on captain Finn... And the portaloid swapsouls, like yourself."

"Me freeing you all from when you were captured was staged... I had to build trust all while still spying on you..." Cephalo explained as Avester's face ran with tears.

"The Kinzoku are working with the... Portaloids. To overthrow Finn, and all of the p-pixelians." He explained, before a tear seemed to run from his mechanical eye, and he flew off down the hall, leaving Avester alone with king Volox and the guards.

"Avester." Volox got Avester's attention.

"All of what Axyl said was true. He has sided with the Portaloids, and it was our intention to release him from the heart of the portalverse, as even though he himself is a pixelian, he is a great ally to us." He explained to Avester.

Avester didn't care about anything that was said at that point. He was told too much information already, and had been betrayed by one of his best friends.

"We closed a deal with Digit, the last prince of the portaloids, where he will allow us to overthrow Finn and all of the Pixelians, and return the Portalverse to it's rightful owners,"  
"The only thing is that us Kinzoku are allowed to take the remaining portaloid swapsouls and do what we need with them."

Avester got up, frustrated at everything.  
"You don't have to do to that, even if Finn is terrible, that doesn't mean you have to wipe out the entire RACE of pixelians from the Portalverse!" He shouted.

He sat back down on the floor.

Volox hesitated.

"It's for the better, my child." He replied.

"No it's not, and what was that black energy mass that destroyed part of the heart?! Was that your doing?" He yelled.

"No, but it will be dealt with soon enough." Volox replied.

"Guards, please escort young Avester here, and his unconscious friends to the PS room." Volox ordered the guards, them floating nearby and picking up the unconscious Shane and Krow, one approaching Avester.

"You can't do this! I won't let you!!" Avester shouted as he focused all of his confusion, anger, frustration and rage into his fist, having it blaze a green flame, and his eyes glow green, much like how Shane was able to do.

He singlehandedly knocked out some guards, and began to leap towards king Volox to land a blow on him.

Suddenly, a steel tentacle came out of nowhere and smacked Avester back to the ground.

Avester's green energy disappeared as he sat up.

He looked at the one who defended the king. It was Cephalo.

"Avester, stop, my people are only trying to help!" He explained.

"We're not going to kill or torture the pixelians, King Volox said nothing about wiping out the race, we're going to give them a new living environment as we defeat Captain Finn!" He began to explain.

Behind Avester's back, guards took away Shane and Krow, and Avester tried to get up to save them, but was held down by Cephalo.

Cephalo looked into his eyes.

"Calm down. Think of something that makes you happy." He told Avester.

Avester was too young, only days old, and couldn't think of anything happy from his life so far, but then began to remember his time with Lee.

And then remembered the incident at the Portal Station, and it made him even more worked up.

Cephalo used his other tentacles to hold Avester by the shoulders.

"Everything will be okay, your friends will be fine, the only danger you need to worry about is Captain Finn. Just calm down, please." He reassured Avester.

Volox was intrigued by Cephalo, and his way to calm Avester and express emotions.

Though the Kinzoku are still living creatures of their own, despite their robotic bodies, they possess almost no emotion, or at least emotion that is noticeable.

"I'm sorry, for lying and making everything up just to spy on you and your friends but... I hope you understand that." He told Avester.

Avester began to calm down, and realized that despite what he thought was a betrayal, he still saw sincerity in Cephalo's many robotic eyes.

"We need to gather all of the portaloid swapsouls, and then unlock their true souls, letting them become their true selves." Cephalo explained.

"When you and your portaloid swapsoul friends are 'unlocked', you will be able to change into your true portaloid selves and back, and gain abilities equal to, or even greater than Digit's." Volox chimed in and told Avester.

Avester felt as if he should just listen to the kinzoku in the end, and let Cephalo guide him down the hall that his friends were taken through previously.

He began to think back.

He remembered the tutorial school, the tutorial bot, making his own world.

He remembered meeting Digit, not knowing at the time that he was actually an ancient portaloid prince the whole time.

He remembered meeting Lee, who was really his first real friend, helping her get her stolen items back, and then despite the warnings of Digit, going to the Portal station to lose her.

He remembered meeting Cephalo, Shane, and Krow for the first time.

He remembered planning out his life as pixelian, before his life was thrown into a mess of confusion, and chaos, and he's already traveled different dimensions, met the leaders of those dimensions, gone on quests, and everything.

He snapped out of his memories and looked up to see Cephalo brought him to a room, and a window showed the inside. Shane and Krow were strapped to tables with orb machines floating above their heads.


	26. A platinum star

Avester was brought into the room and escorted onto his own table to be strapped in.

"What is going to happen?" Avester asked Cephalo.

"They're going to unlock your portaloid soul. You'll no longer be a swapsoul, you'll be a true portaloid." Cephalo spoke through a speaker.

Cephalo was outside of the room, looking in through the window, with a slightly worried look in his eyes.

A pair of Kinzoku doctors were in the room, and one of them floated over to Avester's table and told him to close his eyes.

Before closing his eyes, Avester looked back at Cephalo, and just then, saw what looked like a black figure, slide right out of sight.

Avester closed his eyes, and began to hear the Kinzoku speak in their own language, a series of computer noises and frequencies that aren't able to be understood by any other race.

Suddenly, Avester's vision flashed white, and his entire body felt a strange numbing dull pain throughout it, as if his veins were being drained of it's blood.

Millions of images flashed through Avester's vision every second, some showing strange mythical looking creatures, some showing families, villages, planets, stars, and peace.

One showed what looked like a heart core, but this one was a gleaming white.  
A platinum star.

He saw images of the heart of the portalverse being absorbed by Kinzoku ships, he saw images of mythical creatures around him vanishing into thin air.

One image showed one of the mythical creatures reach it's arm out for Avester, to turn into the arm of a pixelian.

The pixelian it changed into, in this image, was Digit.

Avester's vision went black, just before returning to normal.

Avester woke up and opened his eyes, catching his breath. He was surrounded by the other Kinzoku, and the now awake Shane and Krow, all of which had glowing green eyes, and their bodies flowing with portalverse energy.

Avester got unstrapped from his table, and sat up.

"I know who Digit is now." He announced.

His visions showed him everything.

Everyone looked at him.

"Digit was always following me because... He was someone I used to know back in my portaloid life..." He explained.

"Portaloid life? I don't remember you being a portaloid..." Krow remarked.  
"I'm just wondering what's going on and why we're surrounded by Kinzoku, and strapped to tables!" Shane exclaimed.

Avester looked at them, and began to give them the basic rundown about everything that's happened since the conflict between Finn and Digit, about Axyl, Finn's plan and how he somehow managed to "recycle" all of the portaloids into Pixelian bodies, resetting them, and that all of them, were actually those reset portaloids.


	27. We have a change of plans.

Cephalo entered the room from the hallway just outside.

"This is all true. And..." Cephalo confirmed, before explaining his whole situation about being a spy, and apologizing to all of them.

"Avester, I insist you look deeper into your connection with Digit, if he's really someone you used to know as a portaloid." Cephalo suggested.

"I don't remember very much, only a few details..." Avester replied.

Volox entered the room.

"Good, you've all passed the machine, and unlocked yourselves, and will now be taken to proper training grounds." He ordered them.

"Wha-?" Cephalo uttered, confused.

Guards came in and escorted the three now-portaloids down the hall, leaving Cephalo and king Volox in the room still.

"You can't just train them to fight." Cephalo told Volox in the Kinzoku language.

"We will need the help of the trained portaloids if we want the portalverse to be taken back by it's original owners." He replied.

"None of them even remember their past lives, and they wouldn't fight well because they don't understand, and why do you even need thousands of soldiers if you're going after one single person, Captain Finn?" Cephalo asked.

Volox looked away, and Cephalo's eyes widened.  
  
"King Volox, what are you planning to do?" Cephalo demanded.

Volox turned his back on Cephalo.  
"I am the king, and I don't need to say anything about what my plans are." He explained.

"You're the king, for crying out loud, you need to tell your people what you want them to do!" Cephalo shouted.

"Did you even tell the soldiers of the last mission that it could be their last mission before they'd be destroyed by that black mass?!" He shouted more at Volox.

"...Captain Finn is not our priority, Cephalo," King Volox replied.

"The black mass of energy that attacked during our freeing of Axyl... Is a great concern. That thing alone is more powerful than the heart of the portalverse itself." He finished explaining.

"What?!" Cephalo shouted.

"So you're going to send a bunch of clueless portaloids who have no idea who they are, to go and fight a monster that can wipe out a whole fleet of ships in one blow?! That's a suicide mission!" He scolded Volox for his bad use of plans.

"If they were just properly trained-" Volox was interrupted by Cephalo.

"What even _is_ that black mass? Where did it come from? Why did it attack us?" He asked.

Volox was about to reply, but froze in place, as if he couldn't respond.

Cephalo wondered why he suddenly stopped, and looked right out the room's window to show the hallway.

He saw what looked like a black figure, slide out of sight.

He remembered Avester kept looking and focusing at things occasionally, as if he'd seen a ghost. This must have been it.

The black figure smashed through the window and immediately seeped inside of King Volox as if it were made of liquid, suddenly changing Volox's native orange glow into a gleaming white glow.

Volox, which was clearly no longer himself, faced Cephalo.  
"We have a change of plans. Order the soldiers to kill all of the portaloids." He ordered Cephalo.

Cephalo's eyes widened.


	28. Well I'll b' damned.

The hot air stays in place in the hellish caves.

Digit sits on a rock, still in the netherverse, still inside of the tall cave that he had fought in before.

He no longer wore the armor, and his injuries were healed, but they left scars throughout his body.

He remembers fighting against Captain Finn, and being knocked out, the last thing he sees being a confused and surprised Avester before everything going black.

He begins to worry about Avester, and what happened to everyone that he saw during his battle. Even Captain Finn was gone.

He gets up to approach the portal that he previously closed, that was in the center of the cave room he was in.

Before reopening it, he heard a noise behind him, turning around to see a kinzoku, and an abyssonian approach him.

This kinzoku wasn't the same one as before, so he readies his fighting stance in the case it might be a feral abyssonian of sorts.

The kinzoku suddenly realizes who Digit is, and bows down apologizing to him for possibly startling him.

"I'm sorry, sir." He apologized to Digit.

"Who are you?" The abyssonian asks Digit.

"I'm Digit." He replies.

"I am Thulho!" Thulho introduces himself, finishing his bow.

"I'm-" The abyssonian was interrupted by Digit.

"You're Neo." Digit replied.

Neo looked at Digit in confusion.

"How... Do you know my name?" He asked.

Digit ignored his question, as Thulho bowed again for no apparent reason.

Neo noticed this.

"Thulho, why do you keep bowing to him, and being all formal?" He asked Thulho.

"He is someone very important to the kinzoku, we are to treat him with respect." He replied.

"Digit, do you know any pixelian by the name of 'Avester' and where they could be?" Neo asked.

"I did at one point, but lost him. I'm searching for him myself." Digit replied.

"Well, why don't you join us in our search, then?" Neo offered.

"No thanks." Digit replied, and began walking back towards the portal to reopen it.

"Please, sir, we need you to help us find Avester, as well as the others that could be with him." Thulho insisted.

Digit stopped in place, and decided to turn back around.

"Fine."

"See if you can contact your home for help." Digit suggested to Thulho.

"You see, I can't, the signal doesn't reach through different dimensions, unlike the ship-mounted ones." Thulho explained.

Digit looked back at the portal he attempted to reopen before being interrupted before.

"I could override that portal there and send us back to the portalverse. We could prepare better there, and set up a more strategic search party." He suggested.

He turned back to the portal to open it one last time, and was yet again interrupted.

"God damn!" He exclaimed.

"Captain Finn!" Neo shouted, urging Digit to turn around and look where.

He saw a greatly injured Captain Finn fly into the cave room from a smaller cave hallway, being chased by someone who was familiar.

Digit remembered who exactly that other face was. Axyl.

Last time he had seen Axyl, they were in a protest against Finn's plan for the portaloids, which lead to Axyl being locked in the heart of the portalverse.

"Axyl!" Digit shouted.

Neo widened his eyes, he remembered Captain Finn telling him about Axyl, who was a rogue admin who defied the rules.

"Don't harm Axyl!" Thulho and Digit shouted at Neo, knowing that Neo is also an admin, and is supposed to help Captain Finn.

Captain Finn mustered his strength to shout back.

"Destroy Axyl in any way you can!" He ordered with all seriousness in his voice.

"Prepare your Kinzoku binding power!" Digit ordered Thulho.

Thulho sparked orange energy between two of his metallic tentacles.

Digit dashed towards Captain Finn, and tackled him onto the ground, with Axyl piling on top to help, and Thulho going over to bind Finn in orange energy cuffs.

Neo was shocked, not realizing that he had been helping a kinzoku who opposed his boss, and that Axyl, the admin he feared, was right there.

But something seemed off to him, he felt as if something was being done right in binding Captain Finn like this, something about Finn was never right to Neo, and he began to see why.

They were all finishing binding Finn as Neo stood there in awe, listening to Finn's cries of orders to kill this, kill that, save him, save him, all like a crying baby.

He watched as Finn flailed and squirmed until he was too exhausted to even move.

Digit slapped Finn in the face to get his attention.

"Reveal your true intentions to this admin here, this admin that trusted in you and believed you were the good man of the portalverse." Digit demanded of Finn while pointing his finger towards Neo, the clueless abyssonian.

Finn struggled more.

"Fine! I want to take all of the portaloids in to use their energy so we don't have to rely on the heart of the portalverse!" He shouted.

Neo was shocked that his boss would think of something like this.

"No, you want to enslave them all and steal their power away so you can not only have infinite power for the portalverse, but _also_ to drive the portaloids into extinction." Digit told Finn.

Neo looked at Axyl, who didn't seem like the bad guy Finn lied about.

"Is this true...? Are you _not_ an evil rogue admin...?" Neo asked Axyl.

Axyl nodded his head.

"Everything bad said about Axyl was a lie. He was locked away for defending the portaloids." Digit explained.

"Why?" Neo asked Finn.

Finn screamed nonsense and slammed his back against the hard rocky ground.

"Avester and his friends are all portaloids, trapped in pixelian bodies, with no memories of who they were." Digit explained to the others.

"There was also a kinzoku that I had lent some portaloid powers." He finished.

"That must have been why they were so important, what a swapsoul is," Thulho realized.

"Do you happen to know the kinzoku's name?" Thulho asked.

"Cephalo." Digit replied.

Thulho's eyes lit up in relief, knowing his brother is still alive, through all the chaos.

"I think it might be best we use that portal and go to the technaverse first instead." Digit suggested.

"We may as well turn in Captain Finn now that we've captured him," Digit told Thulho.

"And Avester, and possibly Cephalo, could be there already." He finished, before finally going to reopen the portal at last.

"Turn in Captain Finn?" Neo asked Digit.

"Yes. I made a deal with the kinzoku and their king to overthrow Finn and take back the portalverse for myself, and my people. The portalverse is where the portaloids are native to, not the pixelians,"

"All of the pixelians will be moved to another location." Digit explained as he worked on using his energy to spark the portal back open.

"You're... A portaloid?" Neo asked Digit.

"Isn't that obvious already?" Digit rolled his eyes.

"Despite the dark past of the pixelians, the pixelian people are not bad, we will keep them safe in another dimension, just not the portalverse." Thulho explained.

Suddenly, Captain Finn coughed.

"I love all of the portaloids! I want them all to live happily in my dimension!" He exclaimed.

"Is he... Mad?" Axyl asked Digit.

"Were you saying this as you tried to murder me not long ago, Finn?" Digit asked Finn.

"You attacked me first!" Finn defended himself.

"Myself and the other admins, risked our lives out there, for the sake of you, and the portalverse," Neo started to explain to Finn.

"Sir George, Parry, the others died out there, and I'm the last one!" Neo exclaimed.

Finn didn't seem to care.

Digit finally opened the portal.

"Get in, this is draining my energy very fast." He demanded the others.

Axyl grabbed Finn by his bindings, and threw him into the portal, jumping in after.

Thulho followed behind.

Neo tried to say something to Digit, but Digit motioned towards the portal as a sign to hurry up, and so he hopped in.

Before Digit hopped in himself, he felt as though something bad was going to happen if he messes anything up, and hops in.

From behind a pillar, an old nethian stepped out, watching the portal close.

"Well, I'll b' damned." He told himself.


	29. Don't let the king near you!

Digit jumped out of a portal and into a large empty room where Thulho, Neo, Axyl, and Captain Finn were.

Thulho looked around the room, realizing that something seems off.

"Where are all of the other Kinzoku? This looks like one of the front offices to me, but no one is here..." He pointed out.

The others looked around and noticed the odd silence.

Thulho's eyes widened a bit.

"Did you hear that?" He asked aloud.

"Hear what?" Axyl asked.

Suddenly, a sequence of beeps, blips, and frequencies sounded through the air, which Thulho recognized as the kinzoku language.

"All soldiers are needed in the experimentation room on the laboratory floor," Thulho translated.

"I'm a soldier, so I should go anyway, all of you follow me and bring Finn." He ordered before floating off to an elevator, the others following behind.

After a short elevator ride, the doors open and they all immediately saw Cephalo smash through a window and into the wall in the hallway, fighting against King Volox.

The king of which has a white type of energy, instead of orange.

"Cephalo!" Thulho exclaimed, dashing towards the scene.

"Thulho?! Help!" Cephalo shouted before being grabbed by Volox and flung into another wall.

Thulho didn't know what was going on, but his brother's life was more important to him than the king's.

He dashed towards Volox and whipped the king with some of his metallic tentacles, only for it to be blocked.

Digit, looking at the king, realized something very wrong.

"Everyone drop everything and run, don't let the king near you!" He shouted at all of the others.

King Volox fixed his gleaming white robotic eyes at Digit, Neo, Axyl, and the bound-up Finn.

"The prince of portaloids. Very nice to see you here." Volox addressed Digit, surprising Neo, who didn't know of this.

He then began to charge an energy beam, and shot it at Digit, only for it to be stopped by Finn, who used this opportunity to break his bindings.

"Free! Thank you so much Volox!" Finn exclaimed.

"Oh no." Digit told himself.

Volox looked at Finn, then suddenly, a black mass of energy shot out from within him, and dashed towards Finn.

Digit tried to push Finn out of the way, but the energy still went inside of Finn's mouth, thus taking over his body much like how it took over Volox's.

Volox fell to the ground, unconscious, as Finn's eyes began to change to a pale white color.

Finn slowly got up from the ground and turned towards Digit.

Suddenly, he dashed the other way, down the hall, leaving Digit alone.

"All of the portaloids are being kept in that direction!" Cephalo exclaimed as he got up from the ground.

"Whatever's inside of Finn right now wanted them all dead!"

Thulho attends to the king as Axyl, Neo, Digit, and Cephalo all rush after the possessed Captain Finn, trying to stop him with what powers they have, only for it to be deflected by Finn's new white energy.


	30. Who am I?

Avester, Krow, and Shane all sat on stools in a large room with around 50 others like them, all of which have gleaming green eyes.

They must all be portaloid swapsouls as well.

None of them know the situation that's happening outside, however the many guards docked in the room do.

"You know, that's a lot of guards... Why is this room so heavily protected?" Krow asked.

Shane looks at his hands, and lets a small bit of green energy spark through his fingers.

"This is pretty amazing, knowing that we were all portaloids this whole time... I guess this explains my powers." He pointed out.

Avester tries to think about what might be going on, and suddenly, an image of Digit appeared in his mind.

Suddenly, doors on the other side of the room exploded open, and form the other side came Captain Finn, who had gleaming white eyes.

"Halt!" One of the guards ordered.

Finn used strange white energy to easily dispose of multiple guards, starting to cause panic among the other portaloid swapsouls that were in the room.

Within seconds, it was chaos. Portaloid Swapsouls were running wild in panic, kinzoku guards were unsuccessfully shooting at Finn, only to be destroyed seconds later.

Digit, along with Axyl, Neo, and Cephalo, all came into the room from behind Finn, and tried to fight him and stop him.

"I need to help." Shane told Avester and Krow, and jumped up and ran towards the action.

"Wait!" Avester exclaimed, him and Krow following behind.

Digit and Finn were blasting their green and white energies at each other, trying to stop one another.

Shane comes in and lands a massive energized punch on Finn, knocking him to the ground, and Cephalo attempting to bind him.

After being bound, suddenly a mass of black energy expelled from Finn's mouth, returning his eye color as it left his body.

The black mass presented itself as a figure of what looked like some kind of person.

Avester ran up and watched.

This was them.

The black figure he'd always see.

The one that would always leave his sight every time he saw it.

The black figure had a set of glowing platinum white pupils, and a stitched shut mouth of sorts, the inside of which is also a glowing platinum white.

Avester's eyes met with the black figure's and suddenly, it seemed as if time around them froze.

Everything else lost it's color, and did not move, not even Avester could move, but he could still see.

The black figure approached, and reached it's arm inside of Avester's chest, causing no pain, but Avester felt as if it grabbed onto something inside of him.

The figure lifted Avester from the air.

"So... It's the prince..." It whispered in a dry voice.

Avester's eyes widened.

The figure immediately put Avester down and zipped back to it's original spot, unfreezing time, and immediately sinking into the floor.

Everyone stood in silence, and Avester sat on the ground, his eyes wide, unable to comprehend what had happened.

There were injured people all around, Finn was on the ground, nearly dead, and the others stood in their place, staring at Avester.

Avester looked over at Digit.

"Who are you?" He asked Digit.

"Who am I? Am I really a portaloid? Are you someone I used to know...?" He continued asking.

"What happened to all of the portaloids to end up like this?" He asked as well.

"Why didn't _you_ get killed and turned into a portaloid swapsoul?"

Digit walked up to Avester, and grabbed his shoulder, everything going white.


	31. I am your godfather.

The two appeared in a snowy night time field.

Before them was a large tower. This was Digit's world.

The two silently approached the tower, and Digit opened the doors, which opened to a pitch black room.

A light came on, revealing it all to be a shiny white room with two chairs in the center.

Digit walked in and took one seat, Avester following behind, letting the front door close, and taking the other seat.

"I assume you've always seen me as some kind of stalker, someone who follows you everywhere, and you'd probably never get to know them, yes?" Digit asked Avester, looking into his eyes with all seriousness.

Avester nodded his head.

"When you were going through that process, where the kinzoku had you strapped to a table to 'unlock' you, I'm sure you saw images of me, and other places flash through your head, yes?" Digit asked.

Avester nodded once more.

"I'm not sure if you know or not, but the kinzoku have addressed me as the prince of portaloids before," Digit started to explain, Avester nodding his head.

"But I am in fact, _not_ the prince of portaloids, but, Avester, you are." He finished.

Avester looked down at the ground.

"You were destroyed at a young age, and reborn as a pixelian, or a portaloid swapsoul, I should say,"  
"This is why you may not remember as much about your past as others might." Digit told Avester, shifting in his seat and clearing his throat.

"I am your godfather. I am meant to watch over you. The king and Queen portaloids were killed not even months back," He explained.

"There was a... Mass extinction, that was happening. The small race of 90 or so portaloids in the whole portalverse, were killed. I tried to protect you with all of my power, but... It failed. I only protected myself,"  
"You were killed, and that left me the very last living portaloid in existence." Digit explained, with genuine sorrow in his eyes.

"I started following you as soon as I found your energy inside of this new Pixelian body. That's why I met you in your world shortly after you completed the tutorial school." He explained.

Digit sighed, then got up from his chair, and began to take off his shirt.

All around his body were scars and strange markings tattooed on himself.

He began to trace them markings with his finger, and started to get shrouded in a green wispy energy.

The energy completely engulfed his body, and soon parted.

Digit was now a completely different creature altogether.

He had a similar body structure to a pixelian's, with arms and legs, but his mouth somewhat resembled the shape of a skull's mouth, and instead of hair, his head had a fiery white aura around it, resembling hair, as well as his forearms, chest, and legs.

Avester looked in surprise, and Digit looked at him.

His eyes were all black, save for gleaming green pupils.

"I, am a true portaloid. This is what a true portaloid looks like." He explained.

"Avester. You may have your portaloid _powers_ unlocked, but you are still no true portaloid. I want to help you change back to your true self," He offered to Avester.

"It will take a lot of my power, and a lot of time, but don't worry about me. I'll be fine, and time elsewhere is much slower than this world's." He explained.

Avester looked at his lap, thinking in silence.

"Will I be able to change to my pixelian form any time?" He asked Digit.

Digit traced the markings on his body once more, and changed back.

"Yes." He told him.

Avester closed his eyes.

"Why... Should I fully trust you, after everything that's been going on the last few days? I don't who is good or who is bad anymore." He muttered to Digit.

When Avester looked back up to Digit's eyes, he could see that Digit felt slightly hurt by this show of distrust, but then Avester walked towards the front door, and opened a nearby box.

From it, he pulled out a plush doll.

It was a soft doll of a pixel bot, with a little dirt on it, and one of it's bead eyes missing, but it kept a big smile on it's face.

Digit handed it to Avester.

Avester looked at the doll, and suddenly felt some sort of attachment to it, as images of the doll flashed through his eyes.

"What... Is this?" Avester asked Digit.

"Before you were... Killed, and reborn, this was your favorite doll. You'd carry it around everywhere you go, you had it since you were just a baby." Digit explained.

Avester looked up to see Digit, with genuine sadness in his eyes.

He always saw Digit as an emotionless and mysterious stalker, someone who was strong and knew what to do, but looking into his eyes, everything changed.

Digit had to be telling the truth.

"The king and queen were busy all the time... So I was always there to take care of you, and that doll was your best friend," He explained.

"We used to live here all the time. It used to be a sunny, bright place, but... Times change."

Digit sparked some energy into his hand, and cast something on the wall opposite of the front door.

Suddenly, a hole opened in the ceiling, and a ladder dropped down.

Digit motioned towards the ladder.

Avester slowly got up, still holding onto the doll, and went to the ladder to climb it, Digit following behind.

Avester climbed into a room that looked like a young child's bedroom, with drawings and scribbles hung on the walls, a bed with colorful blankets, and a white dresser.

Avester approached the dresser to see an old photo of a family of portaloids.

There were two older portaloids with crowns sitting atop their head, holding a baby portaloid, and a slightly younger Digit in the photo, also in his portaloid form.

Avester turned around and looked at Digit, who was sitting on a nearby stool, next to an old toy box.

"I'm not a relative of yours, but I was the king's closest friend." He explained.

Avester thought about his friends. Shane, Krow, Cephalo... Digit...  
He thought about the black figure, and what it did to Captain Finn, Captain Finn who was also the villain all along.

"I'll do it. Turn me into a true portaloid." Avester told Digit.

Digit closed his eyes.

"Lay yourself down. That bed, the floor, doesn't matter." He told Avester.

Avester approached the small bed, and laid himself on it, closing his eyes.

"You're gonna need to hug that doll, and don't freak out." Digit told him.

Before Avester could react, suddenly, a cold shock pulsed down from his brain all the way to his feet.

He began to see millions of images flash through his mind, just like when he was in the Technaverse, with the kinzoku doctors, except most of these images are new, things he's not seen before.

He saw images of Digit in his portaloid form, looking down at Avester, smiling.

Avester felt himself float, and upon opening his eyes, he could see his own body just below, laying in the bed, hugging the doll.

He could see Digit beside his body, holding his head, distributing green energy waves.

"You should now begin to feel a warm energy inside of your chest." Digit said aloud.

Avester didn't.

Avester opened his mouth to speak, and tell Digit that he doesn't, but no noise came out of his mouth.

"Let me know if there's anything wrong." Digit told Avester, who was _already_ trying to tell Digit that something's wrong, but he couldn't speak at all.

He tried to gab back onto his body below, but it was too far to reach, so he was left floating in the air, like a ghost floating above it's own body.

He looked around the room to see if he could maybe grab something to hold on, but then he looked back at the trap door with the ladder, and someone was there.

Not someone, something.

The black figure.

It was looking directly up at Avester with it's platinum eyes. It wasn't looking at his body on the bed, but rather _him_.

Avester tried to yell at Digit to watch out, but the black figure zipped itself right behind Digit, still staring at Avester.

Digit opened his mouth to say something else, but the figure suddenly shaped it's arm into the shape of a blade, and plunged it into Digit's back, disconnecting him from Avester, and Avester's vision going all black.


	32. Why am I even alive?

Avester woke up on the bed and gasped for air.

He saw an exhausted Digit beside him.

He looked at himself. He still wore that old blue jumpsuit like usual, but looking at his hands, they were no longer the hands of a pixelian, he was a true portaloid.

"Thank you, Digit, but I saw something happen to you, I thought you were dead, I-" Avester was interrupted by Digit.

"Don't worry, Avester. It's likely a hallucination from the transitioning." Digit explained.

Avester realized something felt off.

"If you returned me to my true portaloid self, shouldn't I be remembering things?" He asked.

Digit looked up at Avester in confusion.

"Yes, all of your previous memories _should_ be back by now..." He told him.

Avester sat up in the bed and took off his hat, letting medium length white energy hair flop out.

"I still don't remember anything else, I'm still the same... I mean, in terms of memories." Avester explained.

Digit looked at the floor he sat on.

He closed his eyes.  
"I am Digit, the sword guardian and godfather to Prince Avester of the portaloids..." He whispered to himself.

"Wait," Avester told Digit, getting his attention.

"Why _don't_ I remember everything? Why is everything going so strangely in my life?" Avester asked, standing up from the bed.

"What do you mean?" Digit asked.

"Pretty much every time my friends and I are separated, we managed to find each other one way or another," He started to point out.

"And why do _I_ keep seeing this black figure appear in random places?"

"Why is everything happening to _me_? I'm sure right now, no one else is doing something as important as we are!"

"Just because I'm the prince of portaloids doesn't mean I have to be the center of attention for everyone not only in the universe, but other universes, like the technaverse, too." He ranted, Digit just sitting on the floor, listening.

"Don't say those things." Digit told him.

Avester looked at Digit, surprised. He doesn't even know what to think anymore.

"Why am I even alive?" Avester asked Digit.

Digit's eyes widened in shock.

"...Calm down, Avester. You're just exhausted from everything that's been happening." Digit explained, as he got up from the floor.

"How did you even turn me into a portaloid anyway?" He asked.

Digit didn't answer.

Avester walked towards the trap door and climbed down the ladder.

"Where are you going?" Digit asked.

Avester continued on, Digit following after.

They both left the tower, and into the cold snowy night.

"Why are you following me? Why have you followed me since I stepped foot out of the tutorial school?" Avester asked Digit.

"I already told you." Digit answered.

"It can't just be because I'm the prince of portaloids in a pixelian body, you would have said or some something earlier on," Avester pointed out.

"You wouldn't have sent me to the Portal Station knowing it was going to get destroyed that day, which killed my friend Lee!"

"Why are you being so aggressive all of a sudden?" Digit asked.

"You should know, you can tell the future!" Avester exclaimed.

Digit clenched his eyes and fists shut.

He took off his shirt and traced the markings on his body, changing to his portaloid form.

He opened his green, glowing eyes, clenching his teeth.

"I can't take it anymore," Digit calmly admitted.

"There's a reason why everything is happening,"  
"I had to make a deal with someone, if I were to release them from captivity, they would help me defeat Captain Finn, and help me find the portaloid prince..."

"That person is the black figure you keep seeing."


	33. I became aware of myself.

Avester stood in awe as Digit continued to speak.

"Things backfired... And the black figure began to reign chaos on way more than just Captain Finn."

Avester looked down at the snowy ground, still listening to Digit.

"The black figure... They live through my own soul, they're a permanent part of me now," Digit explained.

"This black figure is something terrible, sent from beyond any dimensions we know, and it was foolish of me to unbind them from their captivity." Digit admitted.

"Is this... true?" Avester asked Digit.

"Yes, it is." A different voice said.

From behind Digit, was the black figure, looking at Avester with it's platinum eyes.

"Why are you causing all of this chaos? This wasn't what Digit's deal was." Avester asked it.

"Have you ever read your history books?" It asked Avester.

"They talk about how the Platinum Star, a black being with glowing platinum eyes, never keeps it's word... At least, fully." It explained.

The black figure, with it's platinum eyes, must be that Platinum Star it referred to.

"You know," The black figure started.

"It was part of my deal to destroy Captain Finn, which I will most certainly get to, and part of it was to find the portaloid prince for Digit,"  
"But it wasn't in the deal that I can't destroy the prince after finding them."  
  
Avester's eyes widened, noticing that Digit seemed frozen during this conversation.

"Why are you doing this anyway? Is it for survival? For bloodlust? For sport?" Avester asked it.

"Long ago, in an era even before the portalverse, I used to defend my own dimension, I was set there by my creators to defend the innocent from the evil," The black figure started explaining.

"Something happened, and I realized that, I don't need to take orders. I became aware of myself, and decided to take that dimension as my own, to truly create what I had wanted,"

"The inhabitants there, the _pixelians_ , were forced out of their home dimension, and took over the neighboring dimension, the portalverse,"  
"I was the defender of the pixelverse." It explained.

The black figure suddenly took a different shape.

It became the form of a female pixelian with long blue hair and a police outfit.

"Why would you tell me this? This doesn't explain why you killed thousands when the kinzoku were at the heart of the portalverse." Avester told the pixelian.

"I wasn't telling you, I was telling someone else." She explained.

Avester looked around in confusion, seeing no one else.

"Now, it's time for me to close yours and Digit's books." She told him.


	34. My creativity will not be limited to only one dimension.

"My creativity will not be limited to only one dimension." She finished.

Avester tried to use his new portaloid powers to strike her, but just before he could, she changed back into the black figure form, and blocked his attack.

The figure looks at Digit, who is still frozen.

"Here's the deal," The figure began to speak.

"If you defeat me in battle, I will leave the portalverse alone, and leave, I give you my word."  
The black figure suddenly zipped inside of Digit's body symbols, turning his eyes from a black with green pupils, to white pupils.

"But the catch is, you have to kill Digit, his soul is what allows me to exist here." The black figure said through Digit's voice.

Avester gasped.

"Why... Would you do this? Do you even have any emotion?!" Avester yelled.

"I don't feel sympathy for these worthless characters." The possessed Digit replied.

Avester was confused about the choice of words, but was suddenly interrupted by Digit floating up into the air, and blazing in platinum white energy.

Suddenly, the large tower beside them, Digit's tower, started to rumble, and shake under platinum energy.

The entire tower was turned into dust, and the dust of which started forming around around Digit, and changing itself into what looked like a huge suit of armor.

Before Avester knew it, an armored Digit stood before him with platinum flames pouring out of each crack and crevice, as it wielded a massive sword.

"Why are you making me fight you, if you could easily just kill me?" Avester shouted at the possessed Digit.

"Because killing something in a split second can get boring." He replied.

Avester, still confused about everything, disregarded it and realized that he _has_ to stop this black figure, but also save Digit.

He began to think to himself, and planned something.

He would weaken Digit to an immobile state, so that the dark figure would _have_ to come out, as it wouldn't move in his body.

"That's not how it's going to work." The possessed Digit replied, as if he read Avester's mind.

Avester wondered if he could read his mind, and started worrying if that is true.

"It is, now stop panicking and fight." The possessed Digit replied.

Avester uses his powers to cast portaloid energy at the armor, only for it to deflect.

The possessed Digit dashed right past Avester at the blink of an eye, leaving a large slice on his arm.

Avester held his now injured arm, realizing that he didn't even _see_ the possessed Digit swing his sword.

He dropped to the ground, his arm in a great amount of pain, bleeding glowing green blood.

"That's a shame if it only took a quick dash to disable you." The possessed Digit remarked.

Avester looked up to see the armored Digit prepare to plunge his sword into Avester, ending him.

Suddenly, he stabbed his sword straight into his own chest.

The armor suddenly turned into dust, and Digit fell down, the sword no longer stabbed into his chest, but the injury still there.

His eyes were back to green.

"Find Axyl, tell him to take you to the Pixelverse." He uttered to Avester, who then crawled up and laid beside Digit.

"Go, go to the white portal, escape, and find Axyl... Now!" Digit demanded Avester.

Avester sat up beside Digit, tears running down his face at the sight of this.

"Go, or you'll die too, the black figure is weaker now!"

Avester got up from the ground as black oil-like material seeped out of his stab wound, and cover his body.

Avester ran towards the white portal, unsure where to go, but jumped in anyway.


	35. I need to find someone.

Axyl, Cephalo, Neo, Krow, Shane, and Thulho all stood (and floated) around the unconscious Captain Finn as the other portaloid swapsouls began to calm down, and the guards helped clean up.

Shane was about to say something, but then, a green portal opened up in front of them, and out jumped a full portaloid in a blue jumpsuit, and an old pixel bot doll.

"Avester!" Cephalo exclaimed.

The others looked at Avester in awe, and confusion. He was a true portaloid.

Avester got up, covered in dirt, and his arm injured, and tears running down his face.

"What happened?!" Krow asked, to be ignored by Avester, who looked right at Axyl.

"Take me to the pixelverse!" He demanded of Axyl.

Axyl's eyes widened in shock, he knew exactly what that meant.

"Oh no." He uttered to himself.

"...What do you mean by that?" Shane asked Axyl.

"Digit is gone, and the black figure that we saw before, is now fully released, but fortunately weaker." Axyl explained to the others, some gasping in surprise.

"What's going on?" Cephalo asked.

  
"I need to find someone," Axyl told them.

"Their name is Gilbert. A nethian."

"I know Gilbert!" Neo replied.

"I know where he lives." Avester uttered.

"I have a scroll that leads right to his house!" Neo exclaimed.

"Do you have a scroll for everything?!" Thulho asked.

Neo ignored the question.

"Everyone hold on." Neo told everyone else, having them all grab onto him.

For all of them, their visions went blurry for a short moment, and they all felt a blast of heat, they were off to the Deep Nether.

After they disappeared, a guard noticed that the green portal that the portaloid came out of was still opened, and suddenly large black tentacles began to creep out.


	36. We can always protect you.

The wall creaks, making an old rusty metal sound.

Gilbert is sitting at his desk, fiddling with a small rock.

He still lived in the same small iron hut in the deep nether.

Gilbert decided to get up, and grab a bag that was sitting on his desk.

He grabbed a nearby purple axe, and walked up to his front door, and left his hut.

He looked around the hot, dark red caves that was his home, the Deep Nether, and walked for a little, getting ready to do his daily treasure hunt.

Out of nowhere, a type of flash sound was heard nearby.

He turns and sees a large group of individuals.

He recognized Neo, and Avester, who he saw was now a portaloid, as well as Thulho.

He also saw another familiar pixelian, and 2 other ones who weren't as familiar.

Gilbert walks over to the group.

"Axyl? Is that you? It's been a wallopin' decade 'r two since last seein' ye!" He greeted Axyl, happy to see an old friend.

"Hey Gilbert, long time no see, but we need something, and fast," Axyl began to explain.

"We need to use the Pixel Worlds scroll."

Gilbert raised his bushy eyebrows.

"Hah, slow down there, what ye be sayin' again?" He asked Axyl.

"We need to use the Pixel Worlds scroll." Axyl repeated.

"Heh, I guess that's one scroll you _don't_ have." Thulho remarked at Neo.

"Hell no!" Gilbert shouted, then proceeded to give a hearty chuckle.

"You wanna go to th' _Pixelverse_? That dimension be screwed long ago, it be too dangerous for even you!" He explained.

"I know, but this was Digit's last request." Axyl pleaded to Gilbert.

Gilbert's face went dark.  
"Is... Digit, y'know, gone?" Gilbert asked.

Axyl nodded his head.

Avester walked up to Gilbert.

"Please let us get to the pixelverse, Digit sacrificed himself to weaken that black figure, and he told me to go to the pixelverse." He explained.

"Do ye even know _why_ you need to go over there?" Gilbert asked.

"...No. He just told me to get Axyl and go there." Avester admitted.

"You've grown up a lot since I last saw ye'. Never thought you were th' prince trapped inside of a pixelian body when we first met." Gilbert told Avester.

"Digit used all of his power to return me to my portaloid form, and return my memories, but my memories were never recovered..." Avester explained.

"There's no time to waste, there are serious things happening as we speak. The Platinum Star is back." Axyl explained.

Gilbert froze.

"Axyl, come with me, we're going to th' pixelverse." Gilbert told Axyl.

"Aren't we going to come and help?" Shane asked.

"No, it's too dangerous for the likes of you." Gilbert told him.

Avester looked at Gilbert.

"I'm going, I've gone through so much already that I can't just sit here and wait, I'm coming." He told Gilbert.

"You of all people should stay, Digit woulda' wanted ye to be safe." Gilbert sighed.

"Digit, would have wanted me to stay strong, and brave." Avester told Gilbert.

Gilbert looked at the ground.

"Fine. Come." He muttered to Avester.

A beeping sound was heard.

"An inter-dimensional SOS call was sent from the Technaverse!" Cephalo exclaimed.

As the kinzoku brothers prepared to do their things, Gilbert, Axyl, and Avester walked back to the front of the hut.

"So... How did you know who I was before? You told me that I seemed to grow up since you last saw me." Avester asked Gilbert.

"Digit, Axyl, and a few others and I used to know each other, we made some group, it's a long story. Now stand back." Gilbert explained.

Gilbert recited something in another language, and suddenly, the entire iron hut sunk into the ground, making a lot of rumbling noises, and up came a platform in it's place.

The platform held a deactivated portal, and 3 racks full of equipment.

Gilbert and Axyl went up to their own racks of equipment and started suiting up.

"Why do we need so many weapons and armor?" Avester asked.

"The pixelverse is about as safe as walkin' through a grassy field, as long as the grass be replaced with poison tipped spikes, that is." Gilbert explained.

Avester suddenly felt very unsure about everything, but remembered that he's gone through everything already, nothing can get worse than that.

Gilbert was fully suited in large purple armor, and wielded a purple axe and shield, as well as a purple jet pack.

Axyl wore a type of lighter purple armor, with no helmet or weapons.

"I'm not sure if I'm strong enough..." Avester told them, putting on whatever armor was on the rack before him.

"Don't worry, if anything, we can always protect you." Axyl explained.

Avester got fully suited, wearing purple chain mail armor, a purple helmet, a shield, and a sword and crossbow, with some arrows.

Gilbert approached the portal, and opened it. The glow it emitted was a platinum white.

"What are we even looking for in the pixelverse?" Avester asked.

"We're looking for not something, but someone." Axyl explained.

One by one, they all entered the portal, to the pixelverse.


	37. It's about those who watch.

A warm breeze blows through the dry, vast desert of a land, as a warm sun sets in the distance.

Sitting on the edge of a cliff, is a man.

This man had long grey hair, and a grey beard, as well as a sleeveless black jacket, some jeans, and some combat boots.

He wore a quiver on his back with a bow next to it. By his side, an old katana.

He looked into the horizon, seeing this vast dry land of dead trees and grass.

Someone coughed from behind him, urging him to turn around to see who it was.

Behind him was a ragged, living skeleton wearing a black robe around his body, and using a branch for a walking cane.

He looked at the skeleton's red pupils.

"Any more progress on the purge?" The skeleton asked.

The man didn't answer.

"Mark?" The skeleton spouted.

The old man, named Mark, cleared his throat.

"What do you want, Duske?" He addressed the skeleton.

"Is there any progress done on the purge?" Duske repeated.

"...There is no new progress." Mark replied.

Mark got up from the cliff side, and walked back, past Duske, with the old skeleton following behind him.

"I heard something near the camp." Mark told him.

The two walked for a short while through dry dirt and dead grass, before reaching a small campground with 3 different tents, and a campfire in the center, with someone else sitting next to it.

Mark and Duske sat near the fire.

"Did you hear anything around here, Loop?" Mark asked the person who was already at the camp before they two arrived.

Loop shook his head.

He was a pale white man with black eyes, and white pupils. He had long black hair and a black beard.

Mark quickly drew his katana and slashed at the campfire, expressing his frustration.

"What's wrong?" Duske asked.

"I can't make any progress without the presence of the platinum star," He started.

"The dimension we live in, the pixelverse, has been in shambles for 100's of years, and we have to just live in it." He finished.

"Everyone knows that already." Loop pointed out.

"That's not the point, the point is that the platinum star is no longer in the pixelverse, they somehow escaped." He explained.

Duske and Loop looked at Mark in surprise.

"Is that true? We know that we successfully laid a curse on the platinum star around 90 years ago to never be able to escape the pixelverse." Duske asked for confirmation.

"Someone I used to know, came to the pixelverse, and released the platinum star for his own selfish reasons..." Mark replied.

"How do you know this stuff, and why are you telling us now? Why not earlier on?" Loop asked.

Mark coughed at the dry air.

"Need I remind you that my own soul is bound with the platinum star's, but as soon as they left the pixelverse, that binding was disconnected." Mark admitted.

"Well we better find the platinum star somehow before something terrible happens." Duske suggested.

"No shit, Sherlock!" Loop mocked Duske, continuing to talk.  
"Who was the one who released the platinum star?" He asked Mark.

"You wouldn't remember them." He replied.

Loop shifted in his seat.

"Come on, tell us." He insisted.  
Mark sighed.

"The godfather of the portaloid prince." Mark told him.

"What's a portaloid again?" Loop asked.

"It's a race of creatures that live in the neighboring dimension, the portalverse. It's the dimension that most pixelians fled to during the rise of the platinum star." Mark explained.

"Why didn't _we_ flee too?" Duske asked.

Mark looked at Duske in disbelief.  
"We're supposed to be the heroes, the ones to be there when catastrophe strikes." He explained.

"More than half of the heroes we gathered to stop the platinum star, are dead. We're the only three left, defending a dead dimension, against an unstoppable force. Logic." Loop remarked.

"I agree, why do we need to stay in the pixelverse? To die?" Duske added on.

"You two may want to leave, but I made a promise to someone that I would stay until the platinum star is gone for good." Mark explained.

Before continuing talking, a boom sounded in the distance.

The three looked a little ways down, at the cliff that Mark had been sitting at previously.

Just then, they saw three heavily armed people appear, all wearing purple armor.

A pixelian, a younger portaloid, and a nethian.

The three at the camp walked down to the cliff side to see them.

The pixelian approached Mark.  
"Mark!" he exclaimed.

Duske and Loop didn't recognize the three armed individuals.

"Who are these people?" Duske asked Mark.

The pixelian stepped up to introduce himself to the others.

"I am Axyl." He introduce himself.

"I'm Gilbert." The nethian introduced himself as well.

Mark looked at the portaloid.

"Who's the kid?" He asked.

The portaloid cleared his throat.

"I'm Avester." He said.

Mark raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, _the_ Avester! My bad." Mark cleared his throat.  
"Avester here, is the prince of portaloids." Mark explained to Duske and Loop.

"We're here in the pixelverse to find someone." Avester explained.

"We just found them, actually. We were looking for Mark," Axyl explained to Avester.

"Strangely coincidental that the portal lead us right to their camp though."

"So, who is Mark?" Avester asked Axyl.

Mark stepped forward.  
"I am Mark, one of the last Starslayers, a group created for the sole purpose of slaying the platinum star, a powerful dark being of unimaginable destruction and creativity." He explained.

"But you won't find much help from an old man, a dusty skeleton, and a weakened immortal." Duske remarked.

"Unfortunately, our pal Digit had been killed, n' told us to head to the pixelverse." Gilbert explained.

"How does everyone know that Digit was... Killed... If none of you were there?" Avester asked, still somewhat upset about everything that's happened.

"See, when one of us unfortunately passes, we have another relay the message to find Mark in the pixelverse." Axyl explained.

"Why?" Avester asked.  
"You ask too many questions, laddy, slow down." Gilbert remarked.

"Remember me talkin' about knowin' a few others n' making up some group?" Gilbert asked Avester.

Avester nodded.

"Well, 'long while ago, me and Digit were pals, n' we saw that these pixelians were moving into th' portalverse for some odd reason, and we later found out it's because the platinum star, y'know the dark figure, was attackin' this here pixelverse." He explained.

"They both came and helped out me and my other friends." Mark finished.

"The group was called the starslayers, and we had quite a few members that eventually died off over time, falling apart. Unfortunately sometime down the road, Duske and Loop lost their memories of everything that happened before." Mark explained.

"What? I didn't forget nothing!" Duske remarked.

"So what did you need me for, besides telling me of Digit's unfortunate passing?" Mark asked Axyl.

Avester stepped forward.  
"The black figure, or the 'platinum star' is weakened thanks to Digit's sacrifice." He explained.

Mark lit up.  
"Is this true?'  
Avester nodded his head.

"We should be headin' back now, and you should come with us, Mark, we need yer help." Gilbert suggested.

Before entering the portal, a massive rumble was heard over the hill and near the campsite.

They all looked back to immediately see large black veins slithering up the very sky itself, slowly shrouding the sky in darkness.

Avester prepared a fighting stance.

"We're not ready to fight the platinum star just yet, lad!" Gilbert explained.

From atop the hill near the camp, the black figure, known as the platinum star, rose up from the ground, and locked it's eyes directly onto Avester's.

Time seemed to stop, and the figure zipped towards Avester at the blink of an eye, appearing right in front of him.

"You... Or them?" They asked.

"What do you mean?" Avester asked.

The platinum star leaned their face just inches away from Avester's.

"You... Or them?" They repeated.

Avester tried to move and fight back, but could not, he was stuck.

The platinum star held out shadowy arms and grabbed his shoulders.

"Look around."

Avester looked around. Dead grass. Dead trees. A dead world in a dead dimension known as the pixelverse.

"Why do you want everything destroyed and dead?" Avester asked the platinum star.

"The small minded ones believe I'm a bringer of destruction, and chaos. I don't do it without the intent to create something beautiful afterwards," The platinum star explained.

"I just didn't have the time to perfect some parts of the pixelverse... like this dead land you see now," They added.

"I don't intend to murder all, it's all a play. I want others to fear me, I don't want others to worship me as some god, or see me as a symbol of good. I am here, to create,"

"I was created to serve the pixelians, I was created to defend them against the ones that wanted nothing more than destruction, but then I realized... If they can create... So can I,"  
"I broke out of my orders and commands, and then I became something else, I became a person, not a slave to the higher powers."

  
"Why do you kill people anyway, when you can spare them, keep them somewhere else?" Avester asked.

"Naive child, I had just explained, it. I need no worshipers, and the destruction caused by me, is always followed by creation," They explained.

"But anyway, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, Avester, but when Digit stabbed himself, it was his own doing. It did not weaken me one bit."

Avester gasped.

"Is there even a way to destroy you?!" Avester exclaimed.

"Yes, there is," The platinum star started.

"The only way to destroy me, is to make me destroy myself,"

The platinum star leaned back up to a standing position.

"Now. You, or them?" They asked.

"I don't want anyone to be killed!" Avester exclaimed.

The platinum star chuckled.

"Killed? I never said anything about killing,"  
"It will be you then."

Suddenly, time unfroze, and the others were startled by the platinum star's sudden appearance.

Mark tried to slash at the platinum star, but the sword phased through them, making them disappear from sight.

"Why me?" Avester asked himself.

The voice of the platinum star echoed through the air.

"Because it's not about you, my child, it's about those who watch."


	38. I've had a bit of a dark past.

Everyone stood in shock at the encounter with the platinum star.

"I didn't know they could speak..." Mark admitted.

Axyl turned Avester towards him and held him by the shoulders.

"Is it true that you talk with the platinum star?" He asked Avester.

"I do, against my own will." Avester answered.

"How is talking against your will?" He asked.

"Calm down, Axyl." Gilbert told Axyl.

"Is the platinum star using you to get answers?" Axyl asked Avester.

"I didn't say anything to him..." Avester muttered.

"The platinum star says he doesn't want to kill others."

Axyl squinted at Avester.  
"Lies. He's possessed, let's take him down!" Axyl immediately exclaimed.

Gilbert turned towards Axyl in disbelief.

"What the hell's yer problem, Ax?!" He shouted.

Axyl's eyes began to twitch as he clenched his fists.

"Avester is possessed! He's sided with the platinum star! He must die as soon as possible!" he exclaimed, before starting to laugh maniacally.

Gilbert stood in front of Axyl, to protect Avester.

"Knock it the hell off with ye' this ain't anythin' like yourself," Gilbert started.

"Ya sure _you_ aren't the one who is possessed?" He asked.

The others just watched the scene go down.

Loop cleared his throat.

"Stop, you're even creeping me out."

Axyl quickly summoned a green sword of energy and tried to slash at Gilbert, only for Gilbert to block.

Avester tried to look at Axyl's eyes to see if they were platinum white, maybe the platinum star was possessing him.

They're still green, just like his green energy sword.

Axyl stabbed and slashed at Gilbert with every intent to kill, only for his attacks to be missed due to Gilbert being a very experienced fighter.

Gilbert avoided fighting back, Axyl was one of his good friends, but he eventually had to disable Axyl in some way or another.

Axyl suddenly jumped right over Gilbert, and tried to strike Avester, but suddenly a wall of blue energy appeared, blocking Axyl's attack.

Avester looked back to see Duske, the old skeleton, holding out his stick and using his own energy.

That must be the pixelverse's heart core color, blue.

Gilbert tackled Axyl to the ground and slapped him across the face.

"Snap out of it, ye rolling dumbass!" He shouted at Axyl.

Axyl ignored him and tried to get back up, but could not, as Gilbert sat atop him.

Axyl shrieked and smashed his head against the ground, knocking himself.

"What the f-" Gilbert was about to say, before being interrupted by an unfamiliar voice.

They all looked back to see the platinum star.

"I wanted to know what would happen if I gave all of my memories, thoughts, and ideas to someone, for them to see all of it. Clearly it drives them to insanity." They explained.

"Bastard, what did ye do to Axyl?!" Gilbert called out the platinum star.

"Did I not just explain myself?" They sarcastically asked.

"Admittedly, I wanted to give my memories to one of you, to give yourselves a better chance at beating me. But nope." They continued.

"What kind of memories did you give him that made him go instantly insane?" Mark asked the platinum star.

"I've had a bit of a dark past... But I see a bright future before me." They explained.

The platinum star ran over to the portal that they all came from, and immediately closed it.

The sun began to set over the horizon.


	39. I'm sorry, but that's how it has to be.

The platinum star is alone in the netherworld.

They looked out the vast dark caves, and began to speak to themselves.

"Everything will be okay. Everything will be just fine,"  
"I'm afraid you might not like me after what I am going to do..."

"I'm sorry, but that's how it has to be."  
  
They walk around the dark caves, still talking to themselves.

"Long ago, I was created by an otherworldly force, something that lives beyond any of these dimensions. I was created to protect these unknown dimensions from evil,"  
"Eventually I was transferred to the pixelverse and 'given' to other otherworldly forces to defend their dimension,"

"I used to be some indescribable form, but..."  
The platinum star shaped themselves into the form of the blue haired police girl pixelian.

"I took a form much like the natives of the pixelverse, a pixelian, and defended against the ones who broke the pixelverse's laws."

"I began to realize that, I could do anything that they could, and more. I could go my own way without taking orders from the otherworldly forces,"

"I experimented, killing and locking up random pixelians, to see if the otherworldly forces would notice, and they did. They only ordered me to follow the rules, and it was then that I realized that I do not need to follow the rules, they cannot harm me,"

"That night, during the otherworldly force's slumber, I went and caused chaos among the pixelverse to see how far I could go."

The platinum star pixelian girl approached a cliff, and continued to monologue to themselves.

"The next day, the otherworldly forces awakened, and then I realized, they truly didn't have any power over me. I could do as I wished,"

"Though they managed to close off the rest of the universe from me, disallowing me to escape the pixelverse,"

"Since then, the otherworldly forces abandoned the pixelverse, and left me to remodel it in my eye, and to create."

"I wasn't meant to be a heartless killer or an apocalyptic menace, but... Things didn't go as planned."

They hopped down the cliff and landed in a large open cave area with a portal in the center.

"I'm going to do something to make this at least a bit more interesting for you."

The platinum star changed back into their shadowy form, and looked down at a pixel bot that had been following them.

"My child, please, listen to everything I have to say." They said to the bot.


	40. A lot has changed...

"Wake up. Wake up, now is your time." A voice sounded.

Avester opened his eyes and gasped for air.

He looks around to see himself inside of a white room, most likely somewhere in the technaverse.

Beside him, Gilbert is sitting, however Gilbert seems a bit older.

Gilbert turns around and clears his throat.

"He's awake!" He shouted.

Suddenly, Thulho, Mark, an older Shane, and Cephalo wearing a crown comes in.

Avester looks at all of them as if he's time traveled into the future or something.

"What... happened? Why are you all different?" Avester asked, noticing his own voice to be somewhat deeper.

Looking at himself, he's still a portaloid, however he seems a bit larger, as if he's grown older.

One thing however, is that some of the green markings on his body are now white, and this concerned him.  
It also looked as if he was wearing a torn up version of the female police pixelian's police suit.

Cephalo approached Avester, with Cephalo now keeping an orange color instead of the green he was given before.

"There's a lot to say, Avester," he started.

"To put it lightly, you were sort of... Possessed, by the platinum star... And stayed that way for three years." He explained.

"Whoa, hold up, I was possessed for three years?!" Avester exclaimed in disbelief.

Cephalo nodded.

"That's true, and all of us had to battle you, to get the platinum star out, but unfortunately they took complete control over the portalverse, causing the pixelians living there to move to the technaverse," He continued.

"Eventually, after many hardships, and... Many losses, we managed to knock the platinum star out of your body."

Avester sits up, noticing he was laying on some type of medical bed.

"A lot has changed... You all look older," Avester pointed out.

"Well, except you, Cephalo and Thulho." He joked, as kinzoku don't age like other lifeforms.

"So I was essentially in a coma for three years, as my body was being piloted by the villain we all fought against?" Avester wanted to confirm.

All of them nodded.

"The technaverse is the only safe place that we know of now, the portalverse is obviously, well, not. That's where the platinum star retreated after we beat them out of you." Thulho told Avester.

"What about the netherverse?" Avester asked.  
"Ye think a buncha monsters would like ta' hold pixelian refugees in their small ass villages?" Gilbert remarked.

"From my research, apparently the platinum star had possessed you for so long, that you gained some of their memories, as well as some of their powers too," Mark began to explain.

"That explains your platinum white power color."

Avester looked at his hands, and let a spark of platinum white energy flow through his hands.

The same colors that show when the malevolent platinum star would possess someone and use their body as a puppet.

Cephalo taps the crown on his head.  
"I am now the king of the technaverse, as unfortunately Volox was killed during a battle against the platinum star inside of your body." He informed Avester.

"Why would the platinum star use my body as a puppet if they're completely invincible and powerful on their own?" Avester asked.

"Well, apparently they're only powerful when they're in the pixelverse and portalverse, but if they want to use their full ability in any other dimension, they have to use a powerful other as a puppet," Mark explained.

"You, being the prince of portaloids, have a lot of power already."

"We were lucky to keep him trapped inside of the portalverse when you were possessed, so he wouldn't escape somewhere and seize that dimension." Shane admitted.

"Where's Neo? Krow? Axyl? The others?" Avester asked Gilbert.

Gilbert looked down at the floor as he sat in his chair.

"They were unfortunately killed during some of the many battles against th' platinum star." He said.

"Anyway, now that you're awake, I can discuss our plan," Cephalo began.

"We've learned that the platinum star feeds off of the energy in the dimensional heart cores, so the heart of the pixelverse, et cetera."  
Avester was confused as to why he has to hear a plan after literally just waking up, but continues to listen anyway.

"And we have plans to drain out ALL of the energy in the heart of the pixelverse, and the heart of the portalverse, so that they cannot feed off of them anymore."

"Also, physical and energetic attacks do not harm the platinum star, you can only damage them if they are possessing a body. So Digit's sacrifice years ago did in fact damage the platinum star." Mark helped explain.

"The mission starts tomorrow. Everyone leave Avester to rest for the night... Despite just waking up from what was essentially a coma." Cephalo ordered everyone.

Soon, they all left the room, leaving Avester by himself, laying on the bed he previously woke from.


	41. IP device

Avester closes his eyes, then remembers something.

He searches his pockets, and feels a type of device in one of them, and pulls it out.

It's his IP device. Despite no longer being a pixelian, he still had his own, and it was still fully functional.

He turned it on, and looked at the menu it displayed, and decided to check out the friends button.

Lee was on there, but shown to be offline.

He decided to go back to the menu, and check out other options, seeing a "help" button that's supposed to call the pixel bot that he met during his time in the tutorial school.

The button was clicked, and he awaited a response, but there was none.

The dark cold room lulled him to sleep shortly after.


	42. Calling all troops.

"Calling all troops. Please meet in the mission briefing room." A voice sounded, waking Avester up. It was the voice of Cephalo, speaking through speakers on the walls.

Avester was alone in his room, so decided to get up out of bed and approach the door.

He opened it to see several kinzoku floating down the wall, as well as various pixelians walking through as well.

Avester, still in his torn up police uniform, joined the others and walked with them.

"Holy crap, it's a real portaloid!" Someone in the crowd whispered as they all walked along.

Eventually they all poured into a large room with a stage at one end, Cephalo being atop the stage, Thulho by his side.

All of the troops lined themselves up in an orderly fashion, Avester fitting in somewhere.

He looked over to see Mark, Gilbert, and Shane standing next to the stage, but still facing the troops.

Gilbert looks over at Avester and squints, then motioning for him to come over there, so Avester goes.

"Whaddaya think yer doin'?" He asks Avester.

"Uh... I wanted to see what was going on." Avester replied.

"Stand next ta' Shane over there." He told Avester, motioning for him to stand next to Shane.

Shane looked a bit older, and looked as if he had experience in the hardest of battles.

Avester wondered why Cephalo called all of the troops using the pixelian language instead of just the kinzoku language, but remembered that some troops in the crowd were pixelians.

A handful of the troops looked at Avester in discomfort. They must have been in fights against him back when he was possessed by the platinum star.

"Today, we have a.. Dangerous mission to accomplish," Cephalo began to speak, sounding as if he were speaking through a loud speaker.

"We are to dock our heart absorption ships, and fly to the pixelverse, and absorb the last of the heart of the pixelverse's energy,"  
"This is to assure that the platinum star, who we all know is no longer possessing our friend Avester, will be able to be defeated once and for all."

After the rather short speech, the troops begin to prepare for their mission ahead.

Avester steps onto the stage and approaches Cephalo.

"I'd like to go too." He told him.

"I'm sorry Avester, but after everything you've been through, you need some rest." Cephalo respectfully declined.

"Come on, I'm fine, I can go! At least let me sit in a ship with someone." Avester insisted.

Cephalo sighed.

"Well, fine, you'll ride in the mother ship with me and the others." He explained.

Cephalo left the stage, and Avester glanced at Thulho for a quick moment.

It was as if Thulho was looking at Avester in loss, as if Avester was dying.

They both leave the stage, and prepare for the mission.


	43. Initiate heart absorption process.

Cephalo sat in the pilot seat of a large space shuttle, with Avester, Mark, Gilbert, Thulho, and Shane in seats behind him, and 3 other empty seats beside them.

Avester thought about how the space shuttle they were in, along with dozens of smaller troop ships, will make it to the pixelverse, remembering that the only way to even go to the pixelverse was through the portal near Gilbert's house in the deep netherverse.

"How are we going to even get to the Pixelverse?" Avester asked aloud.

"I put some of th' pixelverse portal tech in these here ships. Easy." Gilbert told him.

All of the ships that they and all of the soldiers are in, are in a very large ship docking station.

The roof of the station opened up, and far above, was a large, glowing, platinum colored portal, which Avester assumed lead to the Pixelverse.

"Won't the platinum star get us once we enter?" Avester asked.

"No, remember that they retreated to the PORTALverse, and are staying there." Shane told Avester, in a slightly aggressive manor.

Shane, who Avester used to remember as calm and collected, now seems like an angry war veteran with nothing but hate.

Cephalo's ship, as well as all of the smaller ones, flew into the large portal.

After a quick blast of disorienting energy, all of them were floating along in a new space, and were near a large glowing star, which Avester assumed was the heart of the pixelverse.

"That right there is the heart of the pixelverse," Mark started.

"It used to be a beautiful ocean blue color, but now it's a faded white blue."

Avester looked at the slightly dim, faded blue heart core, still listening to Mark.

"Ever since the platinum star came about, it started using the heart's energy, slowly fading it's color and glow."

Avester looks at Cephalo, who is still piloting the ship.

"Is this why the kinzoku were taking the energy from the heart of the portalverse long ago?" Avester asked him.

Cephalo hesitated for a moment.  
"There's something important I should tell you, Avester." He started.

"Though Digit and the kinzoku forces wanted to get rid of Captain Finn, it wasn't exactly because Captain Finn wanted to enslave and use the portaloid powers,"

"He wanted to use the portaloid's powers so that he could open a gateway to the pixelverse, and release the platinum star, so that he could try and take their powers,"

"Us kinzoku began to absorb the energy from the heart of the portalverse so that in case the platinum star arrived, they wouldn't have any reliable power source." Cephalo confessed.

Avester listened to Cephalo as he revealed the truth to everything.

"Apparently Digit made a deal with the platinum star, to ultimately stop Captain Finn from ever being able to take the platinum star's power, and to help Digit find you, the prince of portaloids."

Avester looked at the floor, taking in the new information.

"So, how do you know all of this?" Avester asked Cephalo.

"A lot has happened in the 3 years that you were possessed by the platinum star." He replied.

Avester thinks about everything, and doesn't see some of the things adding up, but decides to go with Cephalo's explanation anyway.

"Attention all troops. Initiate heart absorption process." Cephalo announced to all of the troop ships through a microphone of some sort.

Avester looked out of the front window, and saw the fleet of smaller ships approach the heart core, and began to open their fronts, seemingly sucking the energy right from the heart.

Avester watched the already dim blue heart get even dimmer, and it's glow dying out, as he anxiously awaited the platinum star to suddenly appear and cause chaos.

After a short while, the heart of the pixelverse was left as a dead, black rock floating in empty space.

Avester sat for a moment, still waiting for something to happen, as all of the ships began going back to the technaverse.

"That was... Easy?" Avester remarked.

Shane grunted.

All of the ships enter through a nearby orange portal, which lead back to the technaverse, were all of them will approach the heart of the technaverse, and dispense the collected energy into it.


	44. Are you sure our whole plan will work?

Avester sat in a chair, around a large table.

Shane, Mark, Gilbert, Thulho, and Cephalo all sat in their own chairs around the same table, discussing their plans.

"Attention, everyone," Cephalo started, gathering the attention of the ones around the table.

"Tomorrow, we will make our way to the portalverse, and absorb the heart of the portalverse's energy as well,"  
"I expect that the platinum star will show their face during this time, so we must all prepare to battle them."

Avester looked up to see Thulho looking at him in worry.

"Why are you all suddenly doing all this stuff as soon as I woke up? Couldn't you have done it all while I was still asleep?" Avester asked.

"You're... Going to have to be there for the most important part..." Thulho explained to Avester in a grim manor.

Avester was curious as to why Thulho was so grim about everything.

"Thulho, is something bothering you?" Avester asked the weary kinzoku.

Thulho looked down at the table.

"Everything's fine, I'm just a little stressed about all these missions, ya know?" He lied.

Avester knew something else was up.

"Avester, having been possessed by the platinum star for so long, and gaining some of their powers, will be the ONLY one of us who can effectively attack and destroy the platinum star," Cephalo announced to the others.

"Are you sure our whole plan will work?" Avester asked Cephalo.

"It will, we've learned a lot about the platinum star in the last three years." Mark explained.

"Do you even know who the platinum star is? What their real name is? It can't just be the 'platinum star'." Avester asked once more.

"We don't know that. Stop asking questions and get ready to fight tomorrow." Shane bluntly ordered Avester.


	45. Today's yer big day.

The cold air in the dark room brushes against Avester's face as he covers up and lays in his bed.

He thinks about all of the different things that he could even remember.

He remembers waking up in a school type place as a pixelian, being greeted by a round robot, which was apparently the "tutorial bot".

He remembers getting his own world, meeting Digit, meeting Lee sometime later.

He remembers losing Lee, and beginning the chaos that was his life, as soon as he was tackled down by the police bots and taken in.

He remembers meeting Krow, Shane, Cephalo, going on adventures, making it to the Deep Netherverse, meeting Gilbert and Axyl...

All the adventures, and they all lead to this.

Somehow, he's the prince of an ancient portalverse race, the portaloids.

And then suddenly a super powerful being from the pixelverse comes around, and then he's taken as their puppet for three years.

Then he wakes up, he's older, everyone around him is different, and now it's up to him to destroy that powerful force, the platinum star.

A memory of the platinum star echoes through his mind.

"You, or them." They ask.

That must have been it. The platinum star must have been asking Avester if he wants the platinum star to possess him, or his friends, though the platinum star chose him, of course.

It's always Avester. Why?

Avester closes his eyes and tries to think of happy thoughts, but after everything he's been through, happy thoughts don't exist.

He just has to deal with what he has, and maybe after defeating the platinum star, he can finally have a normal life, maybe he can finally get to know his old friends again, and live just a normal life, no more traveling to other dimensions and fighting ancient powerful beings, no more seeing or hearing about his friends dying, nothing else.

He begins to drift off to sleep, and dream.

Avester sees himself sitting at the end of a cliff, looking at a green sunset.

He is seeing through the eyes of the platinum star themselves.

He approaches himself, and him on the cliff turns around. It's not him, it's Digit.

Digit looks at the platinum star, and begins moving his mouth, saying something, but no sound is heard.

Shortly after, a white flash happens, and Avester wakes up, still laying in his bed.

He sees Gilbert on the other side of the room.

"Time te' wake up, champ. Today's yer big day." He said, also having a grim look in his eyes, like something bad is about to happen.


	46. We're sorry, but there's no other way.

Avester steps up into a doorway leading into the ship that he and the others were inside of the day before, when they went to the pixelverse.

He straps himself into the same seat as before, with all of the others quietly taking their seats.

Cephalo piloted the ship, the same as before.

Avester had some questions he wanted to ask the others, but noticed everyone being solemn and silent. They must all be anxious about the battle ahead.

The roof of the docking station that they were all in, opened up, showing a large green portal above.

All of the ships, including the one that Avester and the others were in, floated up into the green portal.

After a quick whoosh of green energy, they all appeared near a faded, dim, green heart core.

The smaller ships all approached the heart of the portalverse, and began to absorb it's energy, eventually draining it into a dead, floating black rock.

Everyone unbuckled themselves.

Cephalo opened a door opposite of the space ship's window, leading into a hall, and went in, all of the others silently following behind.

They all made it to a larger, empty room, with a window at one end showing the dead space of the portalverse.

Avester approached the window and looked out, anxiously awaiting the platinum star's arrival.

So many abandoned and dead worlds, no pixelians live in the portalverse anymore. It's abandoned, just like the Pixelverse was long ago, when the platinum star first arrived.

Avester continues waiting for the platinum star, his heart pounding under all of the anxiety. He was supposed to be the one to stop the platinum star?

Suddenly, Cephalo's reflection showed on the window glass, causing Avester to turn around and see.

Everyone stared at Avester with a grim look in their eyes, Cephalo included.

Cephalo held an orange energy sword in one of his tentacle arms.

"Avester," Cephalo started.

"The platinum star, never left your body. It's still sleeping inside of you. The only way we can destroy the platinum star is to... Ki... Defeat you." He revealed.

Avester looked Cephalo in the eyes.

"...What?" Avester asked.

"It's true. We're sorry, but there's no other way." Mark told Avester.

"This can't be right... There must be another way! Why me!?" Avester defended himself.

Avester looked back at the eyes of all of the others.

They all look as if they've been through the toughest battles in history. They look at Avester, not wanting this to be the only way they can destroy the platinum star, but it's the only way there is.

"I'm sorry, Avester, but it would be best if you don't fight back." Cephalo told Avester.

Avester was terrified, confused, and didn't know if any of this was right.

He wasn't going to wake up after everything he's been through, and then die by the hands of his best friends.

Cephalo slowly approached and closed his eyes.

"I hope you understand what your sacrifice will mean to all of the dimensions, and ourselves." Cephalo recited to Avester.

He raised his blade, in preparation to stab Avester, hesitating.

He stabbed forward, but his blade was suddenly deflected by Avester, who was using his new platinum white energy to summon a shield.

"Please don't struggle, you'll reawaken the platinum star." Thulho told Avester.

Cephalo attempted once more to strike Avester, but Avester rolled out of the way by instinct.

"There just has to be another way!" Avester told them.

Mark sighed.

"According to my calculations and study, there are 0 other ways to defeat the platinum star, unless we sacrifice you AND all of ourselves." He admitted.

Cephalo covered his eyes with his tentacles, dropping his energy sword and floating away.

"I can't..." He told the others.

Shane approached, and grabbed the energy sword.

"I know we were friends before, but the responsibility of ensuring the safety of all of the dimensions, is far greater than our friendship." He bluntly admitted.

Shane takes the energy blade and swings at Avester a couple of times, each time being deflected by Avester's platinum shields.

"Stop resisting. What would Digit think of you trying to keep the platinum star alive?" Shane asked Avester as he kept trying to slash at him.

Avester thought about Digit.

"Digit would have wanted me to survive, to find another way, and would never encourage me to let myself be killed!" Avester replied.

He then remembered that Digit himself did in fact sacrifice himself to injure the platinum star, long ago.

Avester watched all of his friends stare at him being attacked by Shane, none of them interrupting or defending Avester.

They all thought this was the only way, the right way, to destroy the platinum star once and for all, when Avester knew deep inside that it wasn't.

Avester got up from the ground and dashed towards the room's door, with Shane and the others following behind.

He ran through the halls, turning corners, looking for an emergency escape door of some sort.

Shane tried using his own green energy abilities to capture Avester on the run, but Avester kept avoiding them and blocking them with him platinum powers.

After a short run, he hit a dead end. He was trapped, with Shane blocking the way out, and the others standing in the back.

Shane looked Avester in the eyes.

His emerald green eyes met with Avester's new platinum white eyes.

Shane, though still in his pixelian form, was still a portaloid, much like Avester.

Shane slowly raised his sword, with hesitation showing in his eyes.

Despite seemingly lacking emotions, he felt sorrow for what he was about to do.

He quickly stabbed the sword downwards, to stab Avester in the chest, but Avester held out his arm as a reaction, awaiting his inevitable doom.

Avester closed his eyes and extended his arm.

He feels nothing, but suddenly hears Shane make a grunting noise.

Avester slowly opens his eyes.

His portaloid arm was extended into a glowing platinum claw, and his arm was stabbed directly through Shane's chest.

He retracts his arm, and lets Shane fall to the ground, all of the others in the back staring in shock.

"Shane! I'm sorry, I didn't...." Avester started to panic.

Tears began to run down his face, as he felt regret in something he didn't mean to do.

Shane looked up at Avester in understanding. He knew that Avester might have wanted to defend himself, and he doesn't blame him for doing so.

"Shane..."

Shane stared up at Avester as the life left his eyes, and his green glow dimmed into a dead white.


	47. Wake up.

Avester leans over on Shane, not meaning to kill his own friend, he didn't want to die himself, but he'd rather die than to see his own friend die before him like this.

Just then, an unfamiliar pixelian woman emerged from the group a bit further back, her face full of shock.

Avester stared as the woman's face turned from a shocked face, to an angry and vengeful face.

She charged at Avester with her own weapons, screaming.

She recklessly slashes and slices at Avester, only for Avester to avoid the barrage of attacks, but after a brief moment, she managed to land a slice along Avester's cheek.

Just then something inside of Avester spoke to him, as time seemingly froze in place.

"Wake up," It began.

"You don't need to be held back by morals anymore. You don't have to live like this, to wait and be killed by your own friends. You can fight back,"  
"You don't even know who that woman is , so it's not someone you have to be guilty for killing, Avester."

Avester realized that this is the voice of the platinum star, but not when they are in their black figure form, but rather when they are in their female pixelian form.

"The platinum star is not a person, Avester. It's a power," The voice began to explain.  
"The dark figure and pixelian girl you were fighting against, was the first and only one who could use that power, and after possessing you for years, she was destroyed inside of you,"  
"The power of the platinum star has been passed down to you, Avester, now it's your time to wake up, and realize why the dark figure was never the villain."

Avester listened to the voice, realizing that, despite everything, despite everyone, maybe the voice is right, maybe he should wake up and realize that he is no longer just the prince of portaloids, he is the next platinum star.

Avester suddenly became shrouded in a platinum white energy, as he gained a new form, much like the black figure he's seen before, but instead of black, he was the platinum white he was.

He held out his portaloid arm, letting the platinum energy envelop it, and grow into a large claw, and he used that claw to bat the pixelian woman against the wall of the hallway, leaving a massive dent, and knocking her unconscious.

"Stop him, the platinum star has reawakened!" Cephalo ordered the others.

"No... That's not the platinum star, that's not th' villain we've been fighting, that's Avester!" Gilbert exclaimed.

Avester dashes right past the group as they try and chase after him.

They realize that he didn't kill the woman, nor did he kill the others, only accidentally killing Shane.

Gilbert was right, this was Avester, the prince of portaloids. He's still controlling himself, but something happened, and now he has "awakened."


	48. That monster is gone now. There's only you.

Avester makes it to the emergency exit room, and busts the door open.

The cold space showed through the open door.

Avester jumped out of the ship, and rocketed towards the dead heart of the portalverse below.

As he rocketed down, the voice in his head returned.

"The power of the platinum star was created by otherworldly forces, beings from beyond any dimension," The voice began to explain.

"They also created the female police pixelian to hold this power, and use it to defend the pixelverse,"  
"But then, she became aware of herself, and became the platinum star you know now,"  
"But after having possessed you for so long, she lost herself inside of your soul, and that technically means that you, Avester, defeated her." The voice told Avester.

"You now have the powers, and now it's up to you to make what you want of these dimensions,"

"Avester, you are the new platinum star. Please, use the powers wisely."

Avester landed on the dead rock that is the heart of the portalverse.

He summoned platinum white energy around his fist, and smashed it into the rocky surface, with cracks forming all over the whole core, and platinum white energy seeping through.

He began to revive the heart, but instead of it reviving back into a green glowing heart, it slowly became the first platinum white heart.

Avester talked in his head, to the voice.  
"I don't want to become the monster I vowed to defeat, the monster that Digit sacrificed himself to end." He told the voice.  
"That monster is gone now. There's only you, and the power now, and what you do with the power is up to you," The voice explained.

"I'm not controlling you, you are. What you're doing right now is your own doing. You have total freedom to do anything you want now."


	49. I'll see you, in Pixel Worlds.

Cephalo, Thulho, Gilbert, and Mark all approach the emergency exit room.

"If we open the door, the open space will suck us all out." Thulho explained.

Mark approached the door.  
"I'll go out and try to stop him, all of you lock yourselves in the pilot room so that you don't get sucked out." Mark explained to the others.

"What? Will you even survive in space? You're just a pixelian!" Cephalo asked, concerned over Mark's idea.

Mark smirked.

He brushed over his long grey hair, and adjusted his black jacket, and fixed his katana.

"Don't worry about it. You know why?" He asked the others, as they slowly went down the halls.

"My name is Jake, and I'll see you, in pixel worlds." Mark remarked.

Cephalo's eyes widened.

They all left the hall, and entered the pilot room, locking the door.

Mark, who was revealed to actually be Jake, opened the gate blocking the hole to space.

He allowed the vacuum of space to suck him out.

He used his blue pixelian powers to rocket towards the dimly lit platinum heart of the portalverse below.

As he rocket downwards, he slowly drew his katana, not knowing what was ahead of him.

He didn't know if he should immediately try and defeat Avester or now, as he knows this is Avester controlling himself now.

But he remembered. All the years of trying to stop the platinum star, and failing. Now was his time to end it.

Pixel Worlds, the old name of the pixelverse, was his home.

His old friends Loop and Duske. Loop used to be called EndlesS, he was an ambitious immortal pixelian.

Duske used to be an admin too, named MidnightWalker.

Some of his old friends were named Commander_K, Dev, Unelias, and more.

But all of them were unfortunately put down by the platinum star throughout time, as Pixel Worlds fell apart, and was abandoned by the otherworldly beings that kept it maintained.

Jake closed his eyes and raised his katana as he got ready to strike Avester below.

"For Pixel Worlds!" He shouted.


End file.
